How Our Community is Helping Others During COVID-19

From sewing face masks for senior homes, to offering free courses on happiness and perspective, many people in the Pantheon community are busy spreading positivity.

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During times of crisis and change, community is often the place we turn to for support and encouragement. Your neighbors draw closer, your phone rings more frequently, and friendly advice is freely traded. The Pantheon community is no different. There is a wave of positive actions emerging from our employees, customers, Heroes, partner agencies, and network of developers and marketers during the COVID-19 pandemic—even beyond the everyday support that is a constant between Pantheors. 

From sewing face masks for senior homes, to offering courses on happiness free of charge, here are the different ways individuals and organizations in our community are stepping up during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Rallying Around Hospitality Workers, Globally

The team at Craftpeak, a Pantheon enterprise customer that makes websites and tech products for craft beverage producers, has been busy helping their clients deal with increased demand for pick-ups and deliveries. 

"Our e-commerce platform, which is hosted on Pantheon and running on WooCommerce, has launched almost 30 sites in the last few weeks to keep up with our clients' changing business models," says Julien Melissas, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Craftpeak. "We are helping to facilitate contactless pick-ups, deliveries, and even shipping beer directly to consumers with some breweries."

Julien and the team haven't stopped there. Craftpeak has helped launch All Together, an open source beer collaboration designed to raise money and support for those affected in the hospitality industry. "Some of the proceeds for each sale will go to help service industry folks in need," says Julien. "There are now more than 500 breweries signed up in almost 30 countries."

Helping Small Businesses in Chicago

Small local businesses, including a clothing shop and two therapist clinics, are relying on Carolyn Shannon, Manager of Technical Documentation at Pantheon, for help transitioning to a remote-only world. Carolyn, who is based in Chicago, volunteered her time to help spin up an e-commerce site for the local clothing shop, and to set up Zoom accounts to enable virtual therapy sessions. She's sewing face masks for nearby senior homes, and (on a lighter note) she's started a weekly Zoom book club with some of her friends.

Spreading Happiness (For Free) at Yale University 

In a bid to provide perspective in the midst of such uncertainty, Yale University, a Pantheon customer, is offering its most popular course to the public for free—and it's not what you might think. The Science of Well-Being (née: Psychology and the Good Life) challenges you to consider happiness in different ways, and become more productive in the process. The (now virtual) course is touted to "change lives," and is reportedly the most popular class ever taught in the university's history. 

"I took this course—it was fantastic," says Carolyn. "The team produced an app to go with the course, to help build habits and reinforce concepts." There are almost 2 million people currently enrolled in the course, and it was made available for free on April 8. 

Taking Care of Household Chores in Arizona

To help high-risk locals in Arizona, McKenna Regets, Community Coordinator at Pantheon, is picking up household garbage and helping strangers with their laundry. This is especially important for residents who cannot risk leaving isolation under any circumstances; McKenna reassures that "both the laundry and their trash is placed outside their doors, to avoid any human contact." 

Sharing Advice on Working Remote 

The team at North Studio, a Pantheon partner agency, is accustomed to remote work. A few years ago, the agency decided that investing in 20,000 square feet of office space wasn't the best use of their money—nor did it align with their environmental ideals—so they switched to an all-remote model. To help other teams now obligated to make that leap, North Studio has recently shared some actionable tips for staying productive and happy while working remote, without losing company culture or connection. 

They recommend documenting inefficiencies in a company-wide Google Sheet, ensuring problems are identified early and solved collectively. And they urge team leaders to "bust at the seams" to keep their employees feeling connected. "[Our bosses] dropped food at our houses out of the blue, sent craft beer baskets for us aficionados, and took every imaginable effort [to ensure] that we were working cohesively," their post reads. Read more from North Studio here. 

Supporting Organizations on the Front Line 

Pantheon is dedicated to helping individuals and companies who are affected by the pandemic. "We are continuing to pay several of our building supply vendors, even though our office is closed," says Maureen Gevertz, Chief People Officer at Pantheon. "We feel for those who have lost businesses and jobs during this crisis, and we will do our best to support our local vendors for as long as possible."

Our WebOps platform is also available, free of charge, to organizations on the front line of this pandemic. "We want government, medical, educational, and non-profit institutions to be able to deliver vital information to the public, without worrying about traffic cost or site availability," says Josh Koenig, Co-Founder and Head of Product at Pantheon. "The well-being of our community is our priority at Pantheon, and we are here to serve as a trusted, reliable partner as this situation continues to evolve."

See more about Pantheon's offer here.

We know there are many, many more of you out there providing support. If you have a story you'd like to share, please contact me at caity.bishop@pantheon.io

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• 9 Tips for Giving Engaging Virtual Presentations