With many residents struggling with everyday needs as the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic and related shutdowns continue to reverberate through town, Madison Youth & Family Services (MYFS) is reaching out to provide direct financial assistance to anyone who is struggling right now.

“Everyone has a personal story for how the pandemic has impacted them,” MYFS Director Scott Cochran said. “Whether you were impacted directly from a health standpoint, a financial standpoint, a family standpoint—everyone has some combination of all of those things…[T]his is a time that you can feel fortunate that you are living in a town like Madison where there is so much generosity available.”

During the earliest days of the pandemic, Cochran said he and MYFS focused their initial energy on assistance for those who were most in need—people who were identified as already struggling, financially or otherwise. The direct financial assistance was initially income-limited, with MYFS not sure how much funding would be available in the long term, he said.

Now, an outpouring of donations from local individuals, businesses, and community organizations is allowing NYFS to throw out those income limitations, and look to extend a helping hand to a much larger swath of the population.

Much of that new funding has come through donations to the Neighbor2Neighbor program at the Madison Foundation, according to Cochran, which has offered assistance to residents in need for mare than a decade.

The exact details on the new program have yet to be worked out, but Cochran said that MYFS was committed to helping anyone struggling with the upheaval of the pandemic, and asked residents to reach out no matter what their specific circumstances were.

Likely the program will use a similar structure to what MYFS has used in the income-limited program, which gives $300 to individuals, $400 for households of two, and $500 to households of three or larger, according to Cochran.

What Cochran said he really wanted to communicate to the community with this new program was that he and others are here for them, to help in whatever way they can with no judgment.

“Part of the issue in Madison, and probably in pockets up and down the shoreline, is people tend to be less open at times to taking assistance. I think the pandemic has hit people that maybe have never had to think of...receiving assistance,” Cochran said.

Any stigma or fear or concern about confidentiality should not be barriers for those in need, Cochran said, and he emphasized the program was extremely discrete and confidential.

“We’re all in this together,” Cochran said. “If [people] are having a hard time financially, we want them to take advantage of the assistance that is available to them.”

A few hundred dollars might not be a replacement for a lost job or lost income, Cochran said, but might absolutely help tide many folks over with groceries or bill payments as businesses hope to reopen in the not-so-distant future and other government assistance makes its way through the bureaucracy.

“What this would be is a modicum of assistance for a lot of people. But it’s still there. And if it helps, we want it to help,” Cochran said.

For more information on the program, call MYFS at 203-245-5645 or email madisonwillrise@madisonct.org.