President and CEO Michael Toledo of the Centro Hispano of Reading and Berks County announced that the Centro Hispano will reopen its doors for in person social service assistance beginning Tuesday June 1st. The Centro Hispano has been closed to in person services and programming since the Governor’s mandate to close at the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020.
During that time the Centro Hispano provided community support and assistance telephonically and virtually to meet the needs of our most vulnerable city and county residents. In order to keep community members and staff safe at the Center it will operate by appointment only to manage the number of consumers coming to the Centro Hispano for social service support. Consumers seeking assistance from the Centro Hispano will still be required to wear masks while in the Centro Hispano offices.
“At the Centro Hispano we are committed to keeping our community and our staff safe. We feel that our new protocols of working by appointment only and mandating mask wearing in our offices does just that,” said Toledo. “We will also be keeping in place the six-foot social distancing mandate as it demonstrates our commitment to our community and our staff that we care and want to keep everyone safe as we transition to in person support.”
Since the pandemic started the Centro Hispano has been operating as a non-health care related essential employer. They shifted their programming during the pandemic to meet the food insecurity and vaccination needs of the community. Over the last 14 months their nutritional food service program reached over 1,800 families a day 7 days a week. To date they have served over 750,000 meals during the pandemic. They have also hosted with community partners vaccination clinics that to date have vaccinated over 5000 members of the Berks County community.
“We are still awaiting word from the Pennsylvania Department of Aging on guidance regarding the reopening of The Casa de la Amistad Senior Center, one of the largest senior centers in the State,” said Toledo. “Until then we will continue to operate the Senior Center as a primary hub for grab and go senior meals.”
If you are in need of an appointment with the Centro Hispano please call 610-685-1265. All service coordinators at the Centro Hispano are bilingual and are available to serve all members of the Greater Reading community.
