Newsom Stresses Volunteerism As Reopening Plans Prepared

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California governor Gavin Newsom made a major pitch on Tuesday to harness the untapped energy of Californians, launching a new website and calling on millions across the state to step forward as volunteers to share their talents and abilities as the battle against COVID-19 continues.

The new push for volunteers in every California community comes as Newsom prepares Wednesday to provide more details of a slow, phased reopening plan for the state of California. It is widely expected that the plan will allow a much slower return to normal life than that being pursued by states such as Georgia, that are reopening many services this week.

Instead, Newsom has said that the California plan will be guided by science, data and tracking in order to maintain the suppression of COVID-19 that weeks of shelter-in-place across the state has won.

In his pitch for volunteers, Newsom announced a web portal through which millions of able-bodied Californians will be able to connect with organizations locally that need their help as the battle against COVID-19 continues. The site, californiansforall.ca.gov will work with service-based non-profit organizations across the state, including food banks which have reportedly lost some 70 percent of their normal volunteer staff.

The governor announced that the state’s chief service officer, Josh Fryday, originally of Novato, will head up the volunteer effort that will coordinate with thousands of new volunteers and hundreds of organizations across the state in the coming weeks and months.