Nonprofits Seek Stimulus Check Donations To Help Workers Affected by Coronavirus

Some nonprofits are using crowdsourcing to collect donated stimulus checks to subsidize coronavirus-impacted workers overlooked by federal, state and local governments — including illegal immigrants, BuzzFeed News reports.

One nonprofit, Make the Road, is using the #ShareMyCheck movement to urge people to donate the $1,200 they’ll get from the stimulus package, the news outlet reported.

Organizations in other states are running similar campaigns to help domestic workers, the homeless and other communities hit hard by the virus-lockdown, per BuzzFeed News.

Samuel Nemir-Olivares, 29, of Brooklyn, N.Y., donated his stimulus check to Make the Road. The son of a single mother in Puerto Rico, he grew up on food stamps and knows how important assistance is to immigrant households.

“People think that someone is taking care of these families, but no one is. They cannot go outside in fear of authorities, and they are basically struggling in silence,” he told the news outlet. “They are starving. People are calling crying, single mothers who don’t speak English. ... They have been three weeks without work.

“The people who should be addressing this need are the government. In the meantime, [all we can do is] redistribute [in] solidarity,” he said.

The New York metropolitan area is home to the largest undocumented immigrant population — roughly 1.1 million people — in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. It’s also the nation’s epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

Make the Road said it has distributed around $400,000 in direct cash assistance to thousands of community members, primarily immigrants, and many undocumented, BuzzFeed News reported.

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