{"id":5307,"date":"2020-04-14T09:22:06","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T14:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=5307"},"modified":"2020-04-14T10:12:10","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T15:12:10","slug":"uw-platteville-student-creates-a-community-wide-mutual-aid-and-care-network","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-platteville-student-creates-a-community-wide-mutual-aid-and-care-network\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-Platteville student creates a community-wide mutual aid and care network"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

When classes are in session, University of Wisconsin-Platteville senior Kayla Golden usually finds herself busy, whether it\u2019s with her electrical engineering coursework or conducting research on the\u00a0latest transistor technology<\/a>. So, when the university made the recent decision to extend spring break for a week, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Golden found herself with two weeks of free time and a strong desire to help in some way. In a span of only five days, she created the\u00a0Platteville-area Mutual Aid and Collective Care Network<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a support network for Platteville-area residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have trouble sitting still, and with two weeks of spring break, I needed something to do,\u201d said Golden, who is from Muskego, Wisconsin. \u201cI wanted to figure out how I could help mitigate this in any way. My idea started because I was listening to podcasts, and people were discussing ways to help out. Getting involved in a mutual aid organization in the community, or setting one up if it didn\u2019t already exist, was one of the ideas. I reached out to a handful of professors and talked to city council members, and found that we didn\u2019t have anything in the Platteville area. So, I decided to set one up myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Golden spent two days researching similar networks in other cities for ideas and best practices, and started building her website the next day. The network currently consists of a form for residents to request support \u2013\u00a0such as help picking up groceries or prescriptions \u2013 a sign up for volunteers, and a mechanism for creating pods and identifying a pod point person. The idea of pods, Golden explained, is to set up clusters of neighbors \u2013\u00a0between 10 to 30 in each \u201cpod\u201d \u2013\u00a0who can check in on each other via phone or email. A pod point person is in charge of checking in on their pod and communicating with other pod point people in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pods are important because we need to be able to reach those people who are isolated and might not have access to social media or the internet,\u201d said Golden. \u201cI want to encourage people to reach out to their neighbors \u2013\u00a0but while being careful to practice social distancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Golden said she has flier templates that can be used to put on neighbors\u2019 doors to organize a pod. After recently distributing some of these fliers herself, Golden already received contact from neighbors who were thankful to join her pod.<\/p>\n

Through the help of city council members, Golden was put in touch with local church leaders, Southwest Health representatives, and the Platteville Senior Center and PEAK Program, to help publicize the network. With the website live less than a week, Golden already received one request for assistance, 20 volunteers and four other people willing to serve as pod point people. Several of the volunteers agreed to help with the overall coordination of the network so that when the volume of requests increase, and classes resume for Golden, all of the work doesn\u2019t fall solely on her.<\/p>\n

For more information about the Platteville-area Mutual Aid and Collective Care Network, visit\u00a0https:\/\/sites.google.com\/view\/platt-covid19-collectivecare<\/span><\/a>. Golden encourages anyone who has ideas of resources to add to the network to reach out to her at\u00a0goldenk@uwplatt.edu<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When classes are in session, University of Wisconsin-Platteville senior Kayla Golden usually finds herself busy, whether it\u2019s with her electrical engineering coursework or conducting research on the\u00a0latest transistor technology. So, when the university made the recent decision to extend spring break for a week, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Golden found herself with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":5345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[93],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-5307","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-platteville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/5307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=5307"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=5307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}