OUR CURRENT COVID POLICY IS AS FOLLOWS:
We no longer require all participants to be vaccinated. However, we encourage everyone to observe the current CDC-recommended safety guidelines for all upcoming trips.
As we plan for all of our upcoming trips, we are looking at everything to ensure that we are keeping everyone safe, while providing meaningful and life-changing service learning trips. Everything we are planning will be done with the best practices and recommendations for safety, for our groups as well as our ministry partners. While we are excited to serve our residents in Uptown, we want to be careful, respectful, and sensitive to everyone we connect with.
All group housing and service opportunities will comply with the specific sites’ requirements for sanitization, masks and social distancing. For example, masks are still required while serving at Cornerstone Community Outreach.
In March of 2020, we formed a Covid Response Team at Jesus People to develop a strategy for keeping the community and our neighbors safe. Throughout the pandemic, we have largely used CDC’s recommendations as a general framework for our in-house policy while factoring in city and state mandates as well as our own contextual realities as an intentional community. Like everyone else, we have continually reassessed our guidelines as the landscape changes around us.
Important to note:
- We have 165 members*
- 93% of our members are vaccinated
- 3% are under the age of 5
- When positive cases arise, we follow a consistent protocol which includes isolation, contact tracing, social distancing, and masking. We have found this to be effective in reducing the spread of the virus in the house.
*Jesus People does not occupy the entire building. The top 3 floors, or one third of the building, is housing for about 90 tenants 55+ who live independently (New Friendly Towers). Those tenants are not permitted in our shared spaces, besides the front lobby and elevators. Their vaccination rate is somewhat lower than that of JP, and they may also receive some visitors who are not vaccinated. Since Friendly Towers is independent living, we are unable to track Covid statistics.