March 18, 2020

To:          Upstate Warriors, Families, and Community Partners

From:     Upstate Warrior Solution Leadership

Re:          COVID-19 Response Plan

We want to convey our intent for response to the COVID-19 pandemic and let each of you in our community know our plans for the coming weeks. Our leadership team has two primary areas of focus, and full efforts are already in place to execute the following:

1. 100% contact to our Upstate warriors and their families – Over the next 60 days, our team plans to contact each of our 7,300 warriors we have supported over the past eight years. Our goal is to check on their well-being and ensure we have contact with them personally and with their families. This is our top priority as we stand ready to support you who have served our community in uniform and those who may have unique challenges in the days ahead.
2. Maintenance of community partner work schedule and updates – We are able to serve because our committed community partners are providing services across the Upstate to our warriors. Our team is actively working to maintain contact with each of our key partners, including the VA, to ensure we know their working hours and scheduling nuances. We will continue to be an active link between our warriors and community partners and ask each of our partners to share updates with our team as well.

We plan to focus on the tasks above in order to provide coordinated services to our Upstate warriors and their families, despite the challenges of the virus. We have also taken the following steps to support this work and take care of our staff and volunteers:

1. The UWS team will for the most part be working remotely.
2. As such, UWS offices are for appointments only.
3. All community events taking place over the next 45 days are cancelled or rescheduled.

Please let us know if we can serve you and your family in any way. Our team can be reached at info@upstatewarriorsolution.org or 864-520-2073. Our website and Facebook page will also have our advocates’ specific contact info listed for each of our Upstate counties. Thank you for partnering with us to make the Upstate a wonderful home for our warriors and their families, and our team is standing by to support during this challenging time.

Mastin M. Robeson                                                           Charlie Hall

Chair, Board of Directors                                                 President

MajGen, USMC (Ret)                                                        LtCol, USMCR