The REACH Relief Fund: Coming Together for Oakland Families During COVID-19

COVID-19, and the ensuing shelter-in-place orders, created a scary and uncertain time for everyone in Oakland. And for many of our most vulnerable families, this time isn’t just scary and uncertain — it’s about making the paycheck stretch another day, and surviving another week.

During this crisis, we knew we had a huge opportunity to be our best and to come together as a community. That’s why we urgently launched the REACH Relief Fund within days of the city’s stay-at-home orders to raise money so Oakland families had what they needed for rent, food, and other basic necessities. We knew we had to do something quickly, but we truly had no idea what the response would be.

In just the first week, we had received 600 applications. A few days later, we were forced to close the application because we had requests from over 1,000 people and didn’t know if we could raise the funds to meet so much need. But because of our generous donors, we were able to get funding to every applicant.

Our priorities included: Families supported by hourly workers who have lost income because of COVID-19 closures; Low-income families whose children qualify for free or reduced school lunch; Families who are housing insecure or at risk of becoming so; and/or undocumented and mixed status families who may not be able to access government programs.

We provided families with one and many, or two rounds of fast funding for what they needed, when they most needed it, including:

• Food

• Rent

• Utilities

• Medicine

• Cleaning and sanitizing supplies

• Gas and transportation to work

• Homeschool or child care supplies and resources.