In less than a week, life in Washington has been turned upside down due to the coronavirus pandemic. The state has become an epicenter for the virus, with more than 900 cases and 48 deaths as of Monday. In an effort to keep things from getting any worse, Governor Jay Inslee has mandated the closure of all Washington K-12 schools, restaurants, bars and other entertainment venues.
While these steps are vital to reducing the spread of COVID-19, sweeping closures have put many Washingtonians in a difficult position. Now, some local startups are taking steps to help.
In an effort to help the estimated 68,000 King County students who qualify for subsidized meals and rely on these meals as a primary source of nutrition, Seattle software company Icertis is donating $50,000 to Alliance for Education. The nonprofit provides resources to vulnerable students in the Seattle Public School system.
The company has, for the time being, mandated that all its employees work from home, so the funding — which would have otherwise gone toward employees’ in-office lunches — will provide an estimated 25,000 meals to families in need.
“There’s a lot of kids that are going to get displaced and aren’t going to be able to get the nutrition and the food that they need and rely on it through the school system,” Icertis CFO Curt Anderson told Built In. “This is just an opportunity to kind of give back and take money that we would’ve otherwise spent anyway and use that to try to cushion the blow a little bit from the virus in the community, especially for the school age students.”
Inslee’s decision to close Washington’s businesses will also have a profound impact on small business owners and their employees, who were already struggling prior to the Sunday announcement.
A survey conducted last week by Fresh Chalk, a Seattle-based recommendation platform, reported that 80 percent of the small businesses surveyed had reported a drop in business, with 45 percent seeing a “significant decrease.” Additionally, 60 percent of the respondents said they are considering wage cuts and staffing cutbacks. More than a third of respondents said closure is looming. The survey included responses from 60 businesses.
In response to the crisis, Fresh Chalk created a crowd-sourced tracker to monitor what businesses were remaining open and offering modified services to help people continue to support their community’s businesses while minimizing the risk of further spread.
Intentionalist, another Seattle startup that supports local businesses, recently published a blog post detailing ways people can continue to support their community’s small businesses amid the pandemic. Suggestions to consumers included ordering in, tipping generously and purchasing gift certificates. On Monday, the startup published an updated blog post outlining which independent restaurants were offering alternative services to customers.
The hope is that, by taking these extra steps to keep local businesses afloat, they will ride out this storm. As Inslee said, “We are all in this together.”
