During this time of social distancing, the fabulous TFK staff have been staying in regular contact with our nationwide network of agency partners.  To delve into their front-line experiences in response to the pandemic, we conducted a quick online survey of our partners.  A total of 189 agency partners completed the survey.  This is what they told us:   

For those providing more services, respondents noted the following types of services: 

• Services for kids facing homelessness 

• Mental health services 
• Emergency services (especially providing meals) 
• Schools/educational services 

A few agencies mentioned their workarounds for delivering services. For example, an agency that gives out meals has switched to leaving them on the recipient’s porch. 

Another agency mentioned confidentiality issues getting in the way of using Zoom or other similar tools. 

In order to develop relevant digital programming for our agency partners, we also asked specific questions about the types of offerings that TFK might produce.  Partners indicated that the following kinds of events might be of interest:  

• Reading stories aloud 
• Virtual tours (of theme parks, museums, etc.) 
• Access codes for movies, TV shows, etc. 
• Virtual concerts 
• Activities that involve or are relevant to pop culture 

Typically, the busiest time of the year for us is the summer day camp season, during which we send thousands of kids on educational and fun field trips.  Agency partners are beginning to make their plans for offering summer camps, which will probably offer limited, if any, physical field trips.  Utilizing the feedback from our survey, TFK is currently exploring the possibility of offering a series of digital Field Trip Fridays for this year’s summer camp season.  If you wish to get more information about TFK’s 2020 Summer Season, either as an agency partner or ticket provider, please email Carolyn@ticketsforkids.org.