Francheasca Roberson
Chief Executive Officer
To our incredible community,
Over the past few years, we’ve noted milestones we never imagined when the Covid-19 pandemic began. There were remembrances of lives lost. Memories were shared of our collective experiences of remote life – learning to Zoom for work and school; sharing our bandwidth.
For The Eight, being on the front line took on a new level of meaning and we all became more grateful than ever for those in public safety, health care, restaurants, grocery, cleaning, transportation and so many others who kept us safe and supplied this past year. We’ve never given so much thought to what being “essential” meant until we had to define who really was essential to our daily lives and our economy.
We are forever changed. We know now that we can be more flexible than we ever imagined, finding new ways to work, and delivering basic essentials and services to underserved communities, while learning and growing within ourselves.
Our live in-person community outreach events shifted to a no-contact, leave-at-door protocol to minimize exposure for high-risk groups while still meeting your basic needs.
I want to thank all of you for the resilience you’ve demonstrated throughout the years - we are so very grateful to you.
The definition of resilience is to recover quickly from difficulties, or toughness. From what you all have shared with me and other members of The Eight’s team, “resilience” is absolutely the word I’d choose to describe you.
We ask our supporters to consider donating to THE EIGHT as we need your help more than ever before.
The pandemic and the ongoing variances have taught and continue to teach us new lessons, bringing us together and making us collectively stronger. We’ll take these lessons as we move boldly into the future focused on recovery and never forget we are far more resilient than we ever knew.