Kendal at Ithaca Updates for April 8, 2020

Today we’re talking about food. Why ? We’ve all been working hard on the social distancing practice as a key in preventing the spread of the virus. There’s lots of evidence that it works. It’s simple, it’s inexpensive, and it seems to be hard to do. So hard, in fact, that the Governor has raised the fine for non-compliance to $1,000 from $500.

The challenge and temptation to violate social distancing for some of our residents arises mostly from the need to shop for groceries and other necessities. What to do ?

Many stores offer some kind of ‘shop for you’ service. They’re online, they’re easy but they are increasingly overwhelmed by demand, leading to a trip to the store in person. Delivery people are frustrated with our practice of screening everyone coming into our Community Center and resent it enough to drop the groceries and run. To be fair I’m sure they’re seeing a lot of frustration as they work.

Nevertheless, we continue to explore ways to work with individual stores to develop Kendal-specific group ordering to try to streamline the process. Our Transportation Team is available to do pickup and delivery.

So, how is Kendal helping residents with food ?

We instituted a new two-meal-a-day plan. Residents can order both lunch and breakfast for delivery to their home. You may have seen the post on March 27 that showed the insulated boxes our maintenance crew made. We’ve refined the delivery sequence so that residents know more accurately when to expect their delivery to arrive.

Through our Dining Services supplier, we are able to offer residents a limited grocery service. They can order common items like soup, eggs, milk, bread, coffee, tea, cereal, cheese and cold cuts, fruit and even peanut butter and jelly. The service operates Monday through Friday.

We also want any local children to know that if they shop for their parents, they will be allowed on campus to deliver the goods to the South Lobby entrance from 8 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday and Kendal will deliver them.

We are interested in any solutions others have found here in Ithaca. Please share liberally – thanks !