COVID-19

As the global pandemic continues to take its toll on communities around the world, the Garces Foundation has been working hard to serve the immigrant community of Philadelphia.

The Garces Foundation Food Pantry

We are pleased to announce The Garces Foundation Food Pantry program.


With generous seed funding from the Patricia Kind Foundation, this program will address the urgent need for food that many families are now facing.


Working with our partners in the food service industry, we will provide a limited number of families with a box filled with fresh nutritious food.


The program is simple: Families are provided a code and notified of where they can pick up their box, at no cost.


We will continue the program as long as funding allows.

EREL Online

The Garces Foundation is also proud to announce that we have successfully converted our English for the Restaurant and Everyday Life (EREL) program to an online format. 


The EREL program was designed to offer low cost instruction in English to immigrants in Philadelphia, especially those working in the restaurant and hospitality industry. These classes also teach life competences aimed at achieving advancement in the profession and competence in identifying and using community resources, including our healthcare services. These classes empower students to improve their and their families’ lives through professional advancement and improving their health and wellbeing. These classes are, to the best of our knowledge, the first community-based online English as a Second Language program for Spanish-speaking adults in the Philadelphia area.


The pandemic affects different people in different ways. While many of us are fortunate enough to have access to high speed internet service and jobs that allow us to continue our work remotely, many members of our community do not. Indeed, 93% of our students are currently facing the loss of their job, and, further, do not qualify for unemployment benefits. Our students, therefore are concerned not only about eviction and keeping the electricity on, but also about feeding their families. For this reason, our teachers, in addition to providing language instruction, will use the EREL education platform to support our students by passing along vital information about food, healthcare, and housing.

The news in our neighborhoods, our city, our country, and the world, will continue to be filled with heartbreak. A great deal of adversity lies before us. However, the Garces Foundation family, including its Board, staff, students, and volunteers, are resolved to continue to serve our community to the very limit of our ability.


Thank you for being a member of our family, and thank you for your support, which we need, and appreciate, now more than ever.

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