When the SOAR365 staff began working remotely on March 16, 2020, Julee Fletcher, for the first time, worried about the organization’s future.
A nonprofit that serves individuals with disabilities, SOAR365 has a human services division offering therapy and daily activities, as well as an employment division that provides workers, often in janitorial and custodial jobs. Both needed to continue.
“We flipped very quickly to telehealth as a way to continue pediatric therapy,” Fletcher says. “We were also concerned about safety of our employees, because some federal offices and municipalities were still in motion.”
Fletcher says the nonprofit relied on three guiding principles throughout the upheaval: Protect the health and well-being of clients and staff; do everything possible to provide financial stability to staff and their families; and ensure the long-term financial health and viability of the organization. She credits the IT team for a seamless transition to a cloud-based platform.
“You wouldn’t have thought we missed a beat,” she says.
And where she could, Fletcher tried to lighten the mood.
“Humor is my coping mechanism,” she says. “It was hard to bring that into the work setting, but even in the rough times, we would look for any nugget of humor. I work with a great team: We love our work, we’re passionate about our work and we want to laugh. In retrospect, I wish I had dressed up in some crazy costume for one of our Teams calls!”
