Residents are adapting to community-wide shutdowns to prevent the spread of coronavirus as volunteers organize to bring food and goods to quarantined individuals and businesses close their doors and offer pickup or delivery services.

When Deborah Marshall,67, landed in Haines from Reno last Thursday with plans to self-quarantine after a trip to the post office and grocery store, Courtney and Darsie Culbeck intervened. “I did not know about neighbors shopping for neighbors,” Marshall said. “I came straight home and Courtney had all my groceries here when I got home.”

Since then she’s had four other neighbors shop for her while she stays home. “I’m all alone out here,” Marshall said of her home on the Chilkat State Park road. “Every time a neighbor goes to the grocery store or goes to town, they give me a call and leave it in the car which is stuck in a snow bank.”

Culbeck said she’s since shopped for several others. She’s now a member of an organized volunteer group called Haines Support Chain Initiative that links people stuck at home with residents willing to help them out.

“I feel like the only way we’re going to keep the community safe is if people take it seriously and do what they can,” Culbeck said.

Last week, a group of volunteers started the support chain, an online resource that links residents in need to volunteers who have been able to deliver food, medicine and other services. As of Tuesday, nearly 20 residents requested help from the roughly 56 people who have stepped up to meet their needs.

People who need help can fill out a Google Docs survey available on various Haines specific Facebook groups or by calling Sara Chapell at 314-3074 or Edie Ordonez at 767-5492.

“We are playing it by ear and day by day,” organizer Vanessa Salmon said. “People have requested phone call check-ins, family food-box delivery. We’re working with Salvation Army on that. Volunteers are picking up and delivering mail. A couple people (needed) help filling their water jugs.”

Salmon, Caroline Hankins, and non-profit organization leaders from the Salvation Army, Southeast Alaska Independent Living, Hospice of Haines and various churches met last week with the Chilkat Valley Community Foundation in an effort to organize outreach. CVCF director Sarah Chapell said the organization is setting up weekly online meetings between volunteers and local non-profits.

“We’re going to continue that weekly meeting for whoever wants it and needs it. We’ll continue to do that for as long as necessary. It’s really the organizations and volunteers who are doing the actual work,” Chapell said. “(We’re) providing a way for folks to talk with one another, share information and stay up to date so we can be effective to respond to the needs of the community.”

Hankins, also the Haines Senior Center site manager, is working from home to ensure everyone in the community 60 years and older can have access to home-delivered meals.

“Right now, we’re doing about twenty six meals a day,” Hankins said. “We expect that to go up. Starting next week, we’re working with the grocery stores so seniors can call them, put in an order for groceries and then the Care-a-Van can deliver.”

She’s also coordinating with the public library to deliver books and movies, along with meals to seniors. Interested residents can call 766-2383 to request deliveries.

Senior center cook Rita Brouillette is the lone cook in the facility’s kitchen that typically has an additional employee. On Tuesday she prepared broccoli, cheese and rice casserole, tuna sandwiches, tossed salad and a chocolate chip cookie.

“I’ve been cooking at the senior center for almost seven years and we’ve always done home-delivered meals, but only four or five,” Brouillette said. “This is the most I’ve had to prepare. Today was twenty three meals. I actually kind of like working in the kitchen by myself. I’m listening to my music.”