Simplicity seems to be hard to find these days. For so many, 2020 has been a year full of nothing but complications. If you can remember it, there was a time before COVID, when things seemed to go just a little bit more smoothly. Johnnie was one of 2020’s last IDignity clients who experienced the process the way it was originally designed to be – simple.
Back in January, before 2020 really became the year we all know it as, Johnnie went to the Orange County Tax Collector to try to replace an ID that was stolen from him when his car was broken into five and a half years ago.
On this Thursday in January, Johnnie says, “the good Lord told me to get up this morning” and that’s what he did. When he was told he didn’t have what was needed to obtain an ID, someone at the Tax Collector’s Office told him about IDignity, and as fate or luck or divinity (whichever you believe in) would have it, IDignity was hosting one of its last Identification Clinics of the year several blocks away at The Salvation Army.
When he got to The Salvation Army, Johnnie was greeted with “a smile and a handshake,” something he found meaningful because as Johnnie said, “You don’t get that everywhere.”
That day, IDignity was able to get him his Florida Birth Certificate, a new ID, and help him fill out his application for a new Social Security card all in the same day. Identification doesn’t get any more simple than that.
Though IDignity’s services have become a little more complex this year, our amazing volunteers and staff still do everything possible to make the process easy for our clients. Our new Identification Service Days still help individuals overcome the barrier of identification – something that can be as frustrating and stressful as any given day in 2020. No matter the hard work it takes to get someone their ID, IDignity will be there to help. It’s that simple.
