The Price Chopper Gift Card program has taken on a sad and new urgency. The families are getting sick.

A social worker who is in contact with the Bishop Maginn High School refugee families reports that the coronavirus is “spreading like wildfire” through many of the families, especially those whose fathers and mothers worked in area hospitals or hotels.

The virus has infected adults and children, all of whom live in close contact with one another. Many of the names are familiar to me; many of the children have appeared on the blog or attended Sue Silverstein’s art class.

I do feel helpless. I offered to go to Albany and take photos and bring Zinnia and promised to wear masks and keep a distance and use sanitizers. This idea did not fly. And I know they don’t need another person to worry about.

I can help in other ways, like raising money for gift cards.

You can buy the Price Chopper Gift Cards in any amount, but they must be sent to me at Bedlam Farm since the school is closed, and the cards won’t be sent to post office boxes.

My address is Jon Katz, 2502 State Route 22, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. If you have trouble with the Price Chopper website or don’t like shopping online, you can send a contribution to me, and I will happily buy them for you.

You can send money via Paypal, [email protected], or by check, Jon Katz, Gift Cards, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. If you purchase more than $300 in cards, you might be asked via e-mail to activate them a couple of days after purchase.

Bishop Maginn officials were afraid of the virus spreading among this very vulnerable population. Quite often, floor cleaning jobs are the only ones refugee adults can find, even though many worked as professionals in their home countries.

A good number worked in cleaning jobs in the city’s hospitals, and now, they and their families are sick.

Few of them had access to masks or protective equipment.

The social worker reports that none of the people in these families are seriously ill – a least not yet -and there have been no deaths, but a growing number of people – adults and children – have tested positive for the virus and are under quarantine for at least two weeks.

Some of the families are self-isolating, it’s not clear if they have the virus or not.

When quarantined, health department officials bring packaged food once a day. It is not the food the families eat, or that come from their culture. They are given no choice of food.

For these families, the Price Chopper Gift Cards are essential to their health, morale, and dignity. Adults and children are locked down together, and these people are rule followers, they don’t break or stretch laws.

Price Chopper is the primary grocery chain in the refugee neighborhood in Central Albany, and they also deliver. The families can’t go outside. You can see and purchase gift cards here.

The families who are not ill get no food at all and are struggling to get any kind of benefits. We are helping to feed them as well.

I told Sue Silverstein that I had promised myself that no member of the Bishop Maginn Family would go hungry.

I can’t promise for the Army Of Good, but so far, they are helping me to keep that pledge, and I thank them. I believe we are called to this work. Thanks so much for the food you have brought to these families, you have made all the difference.