Like millions of Americans, I remember my first day of swim lessons at the YMCA. As I left my grandfather’s grip and waded into the freezing cold water, two hands gripping the tile sides of the pool, I began to cry. I felt like I would never learn to swim. But learn I did, and, although I am close to 18 now, I still consider myself a perpetual Y kid.
Through the Y’s swim programs, I found confidence in the water and discovered a lifelong, lifesaving skill. Through the Y’s youth and government program, I serve as the youth governor of Maryland and find inspiration to enter public service at every program event. Through the Y’s diabetes prevention programming, I know I’ll find hope as the son and grandson of diabetics. But the COVID-19 crisis threatens to topple the charity cornerstones of my life and our state.
The complete shutdown in economic activity over the next weeks will prevent many organizations, including my own youth and government program, from hosting the events they need to maintain revenue streams and program funding. An inevitable economic downturn will also force many people to cut their charitable giving for the year short, punching charities in the gut when their services are needed most.
However, there is another staggering economic dimension to the challenge facing our charities. Payrolls in the independent sector are larger than those even in the construction, finance, and transportation industries. Nonprofit organizations such as the Y employ more than 12 million people who compose the fabric of their communities. Millions of livelihoods are now at risk.
Sooner rather than later, 44,504 people in just Montgomery County, Maryland, could lose their jobs. And Maryland might find itself bereft of A Wider Circle, which provides home goods, counseling, and antipoverty education to families in need. It is horrifying to imagine what my community would look like without the youth and family services provided by the Silver Spring Y or the lifesaving generosity of Manna Food Center.
Just as our elected officials have stood up for their constituents and defended the common good on countless other occasions, they must fight the good fight now. Nationwide nonprofit organizations have recently released a request for the legislature to allocate $60 billion in relief for groups on the frontlines of the battle against the coronavirus. Congress must ensure, as it relieves corporations decimated by the current crisis, that it also sees to the needs of the nonprofit organizations whose work is so vitally important.
Lintaro Donovan is a high school student in Silver Spring, Maryland.
