A community organization recruiting volunteers to help frontline heroes managing Households
Chicago COVIDsitters, a student volunteer organization created by a group of medical students, aims to help healthcare workers manage their households while they are working on the frontline during the coronavirus pandemic. The free services include childcare, petsitting, and household errands.
Zoe Ljubic, the founder of Chicago COVIDsitters, is also a medical student at Ross University School of Medicine. She joined with other medical students on the executive board to create the community service, but the whole organization consists of more health professional students around the Chicagoland areas.
COVIDsitters originally started in Minnesota, which is called Minnesota COVIDsitters. Ljubic said there have been multiple COVIDsitters branches popping out in the U.S., but she realized there was nothing similar in Chicago. Thus, she decided to start one.
“What we do is we’re supporting our healthcare heroes that are currently on the frontline of this pandemic,” said Ljubic.
The frontline heroes include doctors, nurses, technicians, cafeteria staff, janitorial staff in hospitals, nursing home staff, and other health clinic staff.
“Our biggest goal is to make sure that we can provide our frontline heroes with the support that they need, especially during this time where finding childcare might be difficult and finding somebody to go to the grocery store... we’re here to all set that burden. So when they come home, their families are taken care of,” said Ljubic.
Ljubic said childcare is found to be the biggest need.
If you want to be a volunteer at Chicago COVIDsitters, you must meet the three minimum requirements:
Any university/college-affiliated graduate or undergraduate student (must show valid student ID)
Passed background check done by school/employer
Up-to-date on vaccinations (including most recent flu)
Chicago COVIDsitters is recruiting volunteers constantly throughout the time of the coronavirus pandemic. To learn more about Chicago COVIDsitters, visit here.