COVID-19-UPDATE-HEADER

March 13, 2020

Based on the latest information and guidance from the CDC and leading health officials, we have decided to suspend all programming, events and volunteer orientations at the GiGi’s Playhouse National Office in Hoffman Estates and in Playhouses across the country until further notice. Out of an abundance of caution because of potentially heightened risk for some members of our GiGi's family,  we want to be proactive and do our part now to limit the spread and impact of the virus.

GiGi’s facilitates over 4400 free program hours a week to thousands of families and had 17 large crowd gathering events scheduled in the next 10 days including the opening of our 49th GiGi’s location in Buffalo. As much as we wanted to be a safe place for our families our crisis team recognized this was impossible.  AS we know this will be detrimental to our Playhouses we have advised all Playhouse across the GiGi's Playhouse Network to suspend all events, activities, and programs.  Staff will be answering calls and emails from new families and others who may need to reach them. We are all committed to supporting our communities through this time. In addition, we are working on opportunities to continue to engage with families virtually during this time. We know that GiGi's is an important resource for all of you and we want to continue to be part of your daily lives even if we can't gather together physically for a while. Look for more information about those opportunities soon.  Please be sure you are staying in touch with your local Playhouse on social media and through E-News.

The length of this suspension is not known at this time. The National Crisis team will continually assess the situation and offer support and recommendations from the info we receive from health leaders. Our current expectation is that this will be required for at least several weeks. We plan to be communicating frequently with you throughout this time to keep you updated on our status.

Finally, if anyone who has been to our location (or your local Playhouse) in the past two weeks receives a confirmed Covid-19 diagnosis, we ask that you let us know ASAP so that we can communicate to others who may have been exposed.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding during this rapidly changing situation. Continue practicing those healthy habits, and we'll see you all back at our programs and events as soon as possible!

Sincerely,
Nancy Gianni, Chief Belief Officer & The National Crisis Team