THOMASVILLE — Archbold is getting help from across the community to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Wednesday, the Georgia Association of Realtors, through the Thomasville Area Board of Realtors, presented the Archbold Foundation with $1,500. Half of that will go toward purchasing supplies and half will go toward “Feed the Fight,” an effort to provide meals for Archbold’s employees.

Archbold Foundation President Vann Middleton has a list of three dozen local companies that have enlisted in the effort to help Archbold. 

Many of them wanted to feed the front line staff and other Archbold workers. In order to control potential infection, however, Archbold prevented outside food from entering the hospital.

So Middleton decided to take the concept of Thomasville’s Downtown Dollars and use that idea for Restaurant Bucks to give to Archbold employees. He talked with the city’s April Norton, Thomasville-Thomas County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Andrea Collins and Alston Watt about the idea.

“We had to figure out a way to pivot because we were getting these requests through the foundation, ‘we want to feed your folks for three or four days,’” he said. 

With the Restaurant Bucks, which are issued in 20-dollar increments, Archbold’s front-line workers can eat at participating local restaurants. So far, 38 establishments have signed on with the program.

One of the biggest obstacles, Middleton pointed out, was printing the currency.

“It’s a very time-consuming thing,” he said. “You have to order special paper.”

Additionally, the Foundation has received donations of gifts cards to local restaurants from across the community. Armed with those as well, the cards are being distributed throughout the hospital’s workforce, including its housekeeping staff and its laboratory and pharmacy personnel, all of whom have been toiling for long hours.

Each gift card also comes with a message of gratitude and appreciation.

“It’s a way for the community to say thank you,” Middleton said. “It’s been great. It’s been a great experience for me to see this outpouring of love from our community who want to thank in particular the nurses and the respiratory staff and the doctors. You want to reward everybody as best as we can.”

The support goes beyond wanting to feed tired doctors, nurses and support staff after a long shift. There are other efforts underway to see that those personnel also are equipped with the proper supplies.

“People are sewing masks, 24/7,” Middleton said. “We get calls every day, ‘how we can help make these masks?’”

Individuals can call and someone brings the material and pattern out to them. Once the sewing is done, they call back to tell them they are bringing the masks. 

The effort also has brought businesses to the table, such as Woodhaven Industries, which went from furniture to gown-sewing. Everfan is sewing masks to use.

The Foundation raises money for a number of initiatives at the hospital and throughout the Archbold umbrella, including scholarships for nursing students. Once COVID-19’s spread began shutting down portions of daily life, the COVID-19 Relief Fund was started. All donations to the foundation now are gong to the COVID-19 Relief Fund.

“We are very fortunate to have a hospital that has been fiscally conservative for many, many years,” Middleton said. “The credit for that goes to years and years of leadership.”

And along the walls of the east tower, the only entrance for staff, there are cards and letters, written by students and children now at home after the pandemic closed schools.

“In all the darkness of the virus, there is a ray of sunshine that comes in from the community that wants to support us,” Middleton said. “Little Thomasville has got a big heart.” 

Editor Pat Donahue can be reached at (229) 226-2400 ext. 1806.