UCC disaster specialist deploys to NYC for COVID-19 relief duty

Ken Skalitzky, Disaster Recovery Specialist for UCC Disaster Ministries, has been temporarily assigned to the NYC Office of Emergency Management to assist with the COVID-19 response efforts. 

Skalitzky, of Atlanta, Ga., arrived earlier this month and will be in New York City until about May 20.

He is assisting with the isolation hotel program which, among other things, makes hotel rooms available for healthcare workers who are worried about returning to their families between shifts for fear of exposing them to the virus.

“I am excited to be doing this small thing for those front-line emergency workers who are risking so much” says Skalitzky. He states he is staying safe by always wearing a mask in public and at work, practicing social distancing, and walking to work from his hotel so as to not take public transportation.

He says the experience in New York City has been “eerie because the city has become such a ghost town.”

Skalitzky continues to support UCC Disaster Ministries and the Conference Disaster Coordinators on matters related and unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic.