In response to the recent outbreak of COVID-19, Girls Inc. has been advocating for our local affiliates, girls, and their families whose lives are being affected by the pandemic.

We have joined our partners in urging Congress to take prompt action to support our communities: 

1. Girls Inc. joined other leading organizations like the American Heart Association, United Way, Salvation Army, and YWCA to ensure that the Families First Coronavirus Response Act relief included nonprofits, and to ask Congress for $60B in emergency stimulus funding for nonprofit organizations to maintain operations, address increasing demands, and stabilize losses from the many closures.
2. We joined other partners in requesting another $500M in funding for out-of-school time youth-serving organizations, to help minimize the economic loss to youth-serving organizations and their employees as well as provide emergency program disruption reimbursements, emergency childcare services, funding to offset costs of sanitizing/deep cleaning of facilities, and educational and nutrition services to youth who would normally be in school.
3. To ensure that the 2020 general elections are free, fair, accessible and secure, we signed on to a letter urging Congress and all state elections officials to adopt and fund a number of voter inclusive policies and practices. Read more here.
   • We signed onto a follow up letter that specifically asked for $2B for states to implement these reforms and preserve the integrity of elections.
4. We joined public interest organizations in signing a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about Lifeline customers, a program that offers subsidies to low income households, so that they can obtain access to telephone and Internet service.
5. We joined other organizations and 14 of our own Girls Inc. affiliates in calling on the Department of Education and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to suspend rulemaking on the proposed Title IX sexual harassment rule until after the national emergency has ended.
6. We signed on to a letter to the White House, Department of Justice, and FBI concerning the rising hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) related to COVID-19.
7. We supported an amendment proposed by Senator Lankford to expand the charitable deduction for non-itemizers in the Senate draft of COVID relief package #3.
8. We mobilized affiliates in key states over the weekend and got them to Tweet at their Senators about the need for government stimulus packages to provide relief to nonprofits.

We have also been monitoring other pieces of legislation that would help our local organizations as well as girls and their families in the midst of this outbreak.

In addition, we are coordinating with our Girls Inc. affiliates to maintain open lines of communication about the impact of COVID-19 and creative service strategies; share resources and information; and ensure that girls and staff members are following CDC best practices.