Rhett Mabry
For 95 years, we here at The Duke Endowment have been working with our partners and grantees to fulfill James B. Duke’s philanthropic mandate to improve the quality of life in the Carolinas.
Today, that mission is being challenged like never before by the COVID-19 crisis gripping our region, the nation, and the world.
The health care providers we work with are struggling to keep doctors and nurses safe while confronting a potentially overwhelming surge in patient numbers.
The four higher learning institutions we assist – Davidson College, Duke University, Furman University and Johnson C. Smith University – have sent students home and moved to online learning as they do their part to “flatten the curve” of rising caseloads.
The rural United Methodist churches we help to sustain are providing spiritual comfort and material assistance to their communities, even as they shut down in-person religious services in support of public health leaders’ calls for “social distancing.”
And the child welfare and early childhood organizations we aid are working hard to meet the physical and mental health needs of families and children whose normal routines, and perhaps sense of safety, have been upended.