Editorial: Angel Arms fulfills its mission to mend, pandemic or not

The coronavirus pandemic has been the biggest story in the world for a year. But it isn’t the only story.

Covid-19 is not the only thing that kills people. The problems associated with it are not the only problems affecting people’s lives. It may be the big bad wolf, but there are still smaller villains that attack every single day and they will not wait until the wolf is caged.

They all fight one common complication. The pandemic doesn’t just eat up the attention and the resources. The restrictions required to limit covid spread can also bind the helping hands of other causes.

And yet the charities and nonprofits, the schools and the fire companies and all of the other groups fighting all of the other good fights keep going. They do it because the kids still need to be educated, the fires still rage and cancers keep claiming lives.

Drug abuse, for example, is not in hibernation. It still has victims. Those victims have families. Tragically, many of the affected are not just children, but babies — babies who do not realize that there is a global crisis happening. All they know is that they need to be safe and warm, held close and protected.

They need people to hold them, and in a time of social distancing, that can be hard. But Westmoreland County nonprofit Faith Forward created a program called Angel Arms that looks to fill that need with volunteer snugglers. Yes, baby snuggling, a grandma’s favorite pastime, is in demand.

Angel Arms helps support families struggling to balance the needs of children and the challenges of addiction.

“Like many nonprofits, the pandemic — with social distancing requirements and shutdowns — really hit us hard,” sais Faith Forward founder and executive director Dawn Hennessey. “But the need was always still here and remains.”

It isn’t just the need that remains. The program does too. The people haven’t given up. The mission is still the mission. Angel Arms is still seeking donations. It still needs volunteers. It still has babies to snuggle and moms to prop up. It proceeds to do both — just like other nonprofits who are buckling down and getting the job done.

The pandemic will be over one day. The other needs, the chronic conditions of our lives, will continue. We need those nonprofits to keep doing their jobs, but they need something in return.

They need us to remember that they are there, doing the job and keeping the floods at bay. Whether in donations of cash or things — or a little time snuggling a precious new life — they need our help, too.