NASHUA – If you go to the grocery store today, the average American will see shelves barren where essential supplies were just days ago. Hand sanitizer is on the rise in the black market and bathroom soap has nearly vanished from the continent. While we want to protect ourselves, our families and our children, we sometimes neglect to think of those who do not get the opportunity to create a subterranean, coronavirus-kicking bunker.

Michael Reinke, executive director of the Nashua Soup Kitchen & Shelter, however, does not. With statistics showing a near-exponential increase in confirmed cases each day across the globe, Reinke is taking measures to prepare for an onslaught of COVID-19.

Before stepping foot in the building, there are signs plastered on the doors offering masks to anyone who isn’t feeling well. Inside the soup kitchen and pantry, Reinke walked in circles around the dining room and disclosed it is where he is “most worried about things.”

Aside from typical precautions such as “wiping down any and all surfaces that people will be touching (including light switches and railings) with Lysol and putting up signs (that encourages) clean hands,” Reinke also has bigger-picture ideas.

The soup kitchen offers both a client-choice pantry and a dine-in, staff-served, buffet style kitchen.

“If we have an outbreak in Nashua, then we probably won’t do dining here,” he explained. “We plan to do boxed lunches to-go (instead).”

Since the maximum seating occupancy is roughly 120 people, a potential intermediary step Reinke referred to as “social distancing,” where each individual present would be required to sit “every-other” rather than adjacent, appears on the near horizon. “The real issue is contagion passed from breathing droplets,” he said.

While the pantry behind the dining room still remains client-choice, Reinke also intends to move to a pre-made box system if conditions worsen to limit the spread of disease.

Reinke’s real concern is not the kitchen and pantry, however, but the emergency shelter. Since emergency shelters offer housing on a night-to-night basis for no cost to the individual, “the way that you can make an emergency shelter work financially is that you put in a bunch of bunk beds,” he said, as opposed to types of low-income housing that generally offer private space for individuals, “everybody doesn’t get their own apartment. It’s more congregate living.”

If an individual at the emergency shelter were to test positive, Reinke plans to “convert one of the bedrooms that has a bathroom to an isolation room, (implement) new procedures with head to toe sleeping, curtains, and maintain three-foot spacing,” and, if this system consumes too much of the intended shelter space inside, he proposes to “set up tents outside the shelter” and or, convert space “in the dining room” dependent upon the number of people who require emergency housing.

If you consider the demographic of those who have tested positive however, it is predominantly individuals who have either “traveled to countries where there has been a high infection rate,” or people associated with those individuals; “friends and family,” said Reinke.

“I am not aware of (a) spread to people staying in a shelter in this country,” he added, ” we are anticipating that could change and our population is perhaps most vulnerable and at risk.”

Additionally, Reinke and his team broadcast this message on social media and to their email contacts just before noon on Thursday, stating: “To our guests, volunteers, and supporters:

“With the coronavirus (COVID-19) becoming a concern in our community, NSKS would like to reach out and assure you that we are making the health of our community our priority.

In addition to our regular cleanings, NSKS has taken on the responsibilities of disinfecting our regularly used public surfaces, such as public phones, hand railings and door handles a minimum of twice a day; employees and volunteers feeling unwell have been encouraged to stay home, additional signage has been added throughout our facilities to encourage appropriate hand washing techniques; and -COMING SOON- in addition to the sinks in the bathrooms, NSKS will have a hand washing station in our dining room.

Please know, NSKS is doing our best to keep our facilities a safe and welcoming place for all.

For those that would like to aid NSKS in our pursuit of health and safety, we are accepting donations of paper towels, disinfecting wipes, disinfecting sprays, hand sanitizer, and other cleaning supplies.

Thank you all for your support!”

For more information about NSKS call 603-889-7770, email Michael Reinke at michel@nsks.org, or visit their website at https://nsks.org/

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