Last year I wrote to you about our pledge to strengthen our community to be a place where diverse perspectives and experiences are welcomed and respected. 2020 was a hard year. We began the year with a covid-19 pandemic, which has exposed the systemic inequities that people of color, elderly and other diverse communities have and continue to face every day. We witnessed painful and heartbreaking racist incidents that sent us into the streets with our masks on. We experienced racist rhetoric supported in the nation's highest places that divided our country at a time when we needed to work together. 2021 arrived with an attack on our nation's Capitol by Americans, which shook our country to its very core. As a nation, as a community, we stand at the crossroads of racism and systems of oppression that perpetuate it.
In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King wrote a book, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community? He answered the question of “Never again will I be silent…Let us be those who will call our nation to a higher destiny, to a new plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humaneness.” We, as Americans, have some work to do, but I do see a silver lining. I have seen so many examples of neighbors helping neighbors and people coming together in creative ways to create community. Our commitment as a campus to strengthen our culture is as strong as ever. Our Promise Statement says that we welcome all people no matter their skin color, background, ethnicity, their philosophical beliefs or non-beliefs, their gender or gender identity. It also states that we are guided through our core values of compassion, accountability, respect and excellence.
This month is Black History Month, and Beatitudes Campus, as a community, will take this opportunity to learn about America's long history of inequality. But, we will focus not just on the past. We will celebrate the African-American culture, provide education and awareness of the reality of the Black experience today, and we will work to improve it. I am grateful to lead Beatitudes Campus, an organization that prioritizes people – residents, staff and family members – as well as our collective heritage that we bring.
We continue to do our mass COVID-19 testing of our staff across campus. On Monday, we conducted 277 tests and none were positive for COVID-19. We have decreased the number of COVID-19 cases to ten – three residents and seven staff. We are so grateful that many of our community have recovered from the virus. We did receive notice that one Plaza View Assisted Living support staff tested positive yesterday, due to family exposure. We hold all individuals in our thoughts and prayers.
Please stay safe,
My best,
Michelle Just, President and CEO
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