COVID-19

The Master of Education in School Counseling program’s fivefold increase in enrollment over two years in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences includes its first cohort of students, which is wrapping up the program in August. Cherrise Smith and Kristie Tacadina saw the anxiety in students during COVID and wanted to help. They’ve already secured jobs. “We are proud of them paving the way,” said Dr. Kimberly Grigg, Program Chair of School Counseling. “They are pioneers of our program.”

There were innovations aplenty as GCU dealt with the pandemic. But none of the required alterations were more visible than the cutouts in GCU Arena, where the basketball environment still was plenty loud enough to be noticed by visiting coaches. Reprinted from the February issue of GCU Magazine.

Volunteers at GCU’s COVID-19 vaccination site got a shot in the arm Friday morning when the Desert Financial Kindness Arizona Bus Tour stopped by to serve volunteers breakfast. “We just wanted to show some appreciation and say ‘thank you’ to what they’re doing,” said Jose Moreno, Chief Marketing Officer at the Fiesta Bowl and a GCU alumnus. The GCU stop was one of 25 on the five-day tour across Arizona, a reimagining of the Fiesta Bowl Parade, which was canceled because of COVID-19. Organizers decided to caravan across Arizona instead and blanket the state with kindness.

Patti Bilbrey, Director of Nutrition Services for the Scottsdale Unified School District, was looking for a way to honor her mentor, Dave Schwake, who passed away earlier this month from COVID-19 complications. Schwake tirelessly fought food insecurity as the Food Service Director for the Litchfield Elementary School District and as a volunteer for several nonprofit organizations. She found that opportunity to carry on his legacy with the Farmers to Families Food Box Program. Her district is one of several school districts who received boxes Wednesday in the latest round of food box distributions.

COVID-19 may have disrupted so many things — everything, really — but it couldn’t stop the GCU community from finding ways to help its neighbors. From establishing new partnerships, such as with CityServe International in the USDA Farmers to Families food box distributions, to strengthening existing partnerships with such groups as Chicanos por la Causa, GCU has become an even more integral part of the community. “It’s a more intimate relationship that we have with the community,” said Community Relations Manager Debbie Accomazzo. “We’re all coming from the same place of vulnerability, and, because of that, we all have the same risks and many of the same things at stake. So I think we’re sharing that vulnerability in new ways.” Reprinted from the February 2021 issue of GCU Magazine.

It took just 10 days — 10 days — for GCU to create a regional COVID-19 vaccination site, one unique in that it is the only point-of-dispensing site, or POD, in Maricopa County that offers a walk-through option. The goal is to administer between 800 to 1,000 vaccinations each day it is open to various community populations by appointment, depending on vaccine availability. “We’re doing it because this is part of our mission. This is part of our values to serve the community in this regard,” said Emergency Preparedness Manager Marcus Castle of the site, which opened today.

Just before the first COVID vaccines were administered to health care workers on Monday, GCU was the site of a free-of-charge, community COVID Testing Blitz. Almost 800 individuals — about 700 who drove through and 100 who walked up — were tested at Saturday’s event on 27th Avenue, organized by the R.A.P.I.D. Coalition to meet the health care needs of vulnerable and underserved populations, including in Maryvale.

GCU was ahead of the game. When new students start the year with online instruction in September, they already will be familiar with GCU through a student-led webinar called Walk to Class, which was launched long before anyone had heard of COVID-19. The First Year Experience program not only teaches them the technology but calms incoming students’ fears with a supportive and caring approach — just what’s needed in this unusual year.