I’m pretty much Self – Quarantined now. It’s time.

Other than Maria and a few food store cashiers, I am just staying away from people. I’m Socially Isolated just like I was all through Middle School and High School. I know how to do it.

And I’m in good hands. And my hands are glowing, they are germ-free.

I drove with Maria to the ATM machine outside of the bank, and she used my credit card to deposit money, and then sprayed it with anti-bacterial spray when she was done. Wow.

I can go outside pretty much all I want. And I will.

I live on a 17-acre farm with acres of woods, take care of donkeys and sheep and walk with Maria and the dogs on country roads or just with Zinnia where there are more hawks than cars and no people.

I will not under any circumstances stay inside for a couple of months, nor is there any reason to. I don’t live in a big city.

I am also discovering new and creative ways to continue my work with the Army Of Good. Yesterday, I arranged for pizza deliveries to the Mansion aides and some of the residents for dinner and lunch today.

This morning, I’ll arrange for some creative dinners to be delivered to the Mansion residents, perhaps from Jean’s Place, which is now doing take out (for local people, the number is 518 686 3258.)

In addition, I’m raising funds to support the Mobile School being set up by Bishop Maginn High School for the students who can’t come to class anymore.

I am planning to buy 20 Acer Chrome laptops for about $200 each and one Microsoft Pentium laptop for $600 for English Teacher John Harden, who is organizing the Mobile Classroom.

He’s done an amazing job of planning. The laptops are key. He is using some of the laptops we bought for the school earlier, but they need 20 to reach everybody. Some will be used by more than one student.

I’m thinking this will cost somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000, and I do need help with it. Some of that money has already been pledged (thank you, Iris and Kathleen). You can contribute to the Mobile Fund via Paypal, [email protected] or by check, Jon Katz, Mobile Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

In addition, we are collecting gift certificates from Price Shopper, a local supermarket chain to give to the students and their families to ensure that they will have enough to eat during this period. Details here.

The certificates can be purchased in any amount but must be mailed to me, as the school is closed and mail is dicey. They must be sent to my home address, Jon Katz, 2502 State Route 22, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, gift cards can’t be sent to a post office box.

I will bring them to the teachers in Albany, they will distribute them to the children and their families. (I’ll stay in the car, they’ll come and get them.)

This is a time of great and urgent need for so many people, but especially for the refugee students at Bishop Maginn. Their families have already lost everything, and they are also losing the menial jobs they have gotten in America.

They need the food we are helping them to buy, and their children desperately need to be a part of the new Mobile Classroom the school has been building.

I’m getting good but very inexpensive Google Chrome laptops with Wi-Fit, some of them re-furbished. This could help them enhance their computing skills as well as learn during this period.

We’ve been in touch with Spectrum about offering them free Wi-Fi for two months.

So I’m getting a firm grip on this extraordinary period in our lives, something I’ve never seen or quite imagined in my lifetime. Lots of things to think about.

Even though I’m staying away from people as a “person of risk,” I will find hopefully creative ways to continue my work and support the people we have been helping for some time now.

People have urged me to raise money for Jean’s Place, but I have to decline to do that, it’s important to me, but not an issue for the country right now.

And I don’t wish to ask for more money than I am asking for, in order to help the Mansion residents and the refugee children from Bishop Maginn, who are in great need.

Maureen also urged me online to get political: “Mobilize your Army of Good to call all their Federally elected officials to support direct payments to individuals (like the ones at Jean’s Place). It is under consideration, across party lines, and they need to hear from us. Every day. It’s an election year.”

Sorry Maureen, but I’ll have to pass on that also. The Army of Good is not an army in that sense. Nobody takes orders from me, they help when they choose to help, I can’t tell them to do anything, and wouldn’t. This work goes on at their pleasure.

We are not a political organization, we are not activists, we have all kinds of people in the AOG with all kinds of political views. The one thing we share is a passion for small acts of great kindness.

We do good, we don’t argue about it, that’s the point.

This is work that need not stop. I might self-quarantine myself, but I have the tools to continue our work and thanks to those of you who are staying with it. I’m surprised to be busier than ever without even leaving the farmhouse.

I wish all of you peace and compassion and patience.