A little over three years ago, Guilford High School (GHS) student Gabi Garcia-Perez founded the Community Integration Mentoring Program (CIMP), bringing shoreline teens together with New Haven elementary school students to work together on language skills, career aspirations, art projects, and a variety of other academic and non-academic work that Garcia-Perez described as a wonderful symbiotic relationship between the two groups.

But in March when the coronavirus pandemic shuttered schools around the state, CIMP had to be suspended, leaving the program in limbo for the better part of three months.

During the shutdown, Garcia-Perez and the CIMP volunteers were not idle, collecting and distributing food donations to families in need as they leveraged the close connection forged between Guilford and New Haven, along with a network of generous donors.

Now, as CIMP moves forward with a brand new summer virtual session, Garcia-Perez said this kind of work—bringing kids of different backgrounds and ages together—is more important than ever before.

“We really do focus on...teaching these students the importance of community involvement,” Garcia-Perez said. “So we [do] a lot of projects that show them that.”

During the last three months, when the pandemic made much of CIMP’s regular work impossible, Garcia-Perez raised in Guilford around $2,500 in grocery gift cards and around 5,000 pounds of food donations, which she said went directly to individuals, families, homeless folks, and elderly people unable to shop for themselves.

This was made possible not only by her own dedication and hard work, but through her contacts forged around the area, according to Garcia-Perez, including working with Everson Soccer in Woodbridge, Hope House in New Haven, GHS’s student senate, and the New Haven Public School System.

“We’ve really been doing a lot...to help people that are actually affected by COVID,” she said. “It’s great to be able to include everybody.”

New Haven Coordinator of Parent Engagement Daniel Diaz is one of her most important contacts, as he is in touch with thousands of families in the city and is often the direct line to those who are struggling, according to Garcia-Perez. She first began working with Diaz when CIMP was just a GHS capstone project three years ago.

Garcia-Perez said that it has been really important to work within the framework built by local advocates and organizations in order to understand what is going on in people’s lives while seeking to make a difference.

Hope House in particular, which was only recently launched by New Haven radio station WADS—Radio Amor 690, cares for homeless people with counseling and hygiene services when traditional shelters are closed. Garcia-Perez described them as “very compassionate people...who just want to help.”

Now, as she graduates herself and prepares to begin her freshman year of college this fall at the University of New Haven, Garcia-Perez said she has identified a small number of dedicated Guilford-area volunteers as well as New Haven families to kick off an online version of CIMP’s regular program, which will begin in the coming weeks.

Garcia-Perez said that for the most part, she and her brother have been coordinating with New Haven parents to get permission and set up logistics for the online program, and a “core group” of CIMP veterans will start making contact and working with them soon.

Their first project will be a continuation of something CIMP started before the shutdown: weaving durable, reusable bags that are donated to shelters, offering homeless folks a tool that is both extremely useful and cuts down on plastic bag litter and waste.

“Hopefully during the online mentoring we’ll find other ways to get them active and get them things within the community...and start getting those connections,” Garcia-Perez said.

The idea is that both the elementary school kids and their high-school aged mentors will garner experience in networking and community involvement- the kind of things that Garcia-Perez herself has already leveraged to great effect.

For more information about CIMP, visitcimpnewhaven.weebly.com or follow its Instagram account @cimp.newhaven.