A moment in the Pandemic

 A Moment in the Pandemic

It had been about a month into "shelter in place," I was delivering afterschool supply kits to Cranston homes so that youth had hands-on activities to do while being cooped up in the house. I was exhausted and worn down, unlike most people I had not stopped working. I advocated for funds, got partners involved in making the kits, planed flexible activities that could be done daily or whenever and had paper and virtual engagement options. I was, and still am so grateful to all my partners, some contributed grant funds they needed to spend down but couldn't because there were no programs happening, some helped me design activities, type up directions and make video tutorials, and many helped me by delivering 10-15 kits each week for over 8 weeks. We started off with about 75 youth, which quickly became 150, which quickly become 300. Thankfully I had community volunteers as well but even with everyone's help, the limits with COVID-19 still put a majority of the work in my hands.

During the course of afterschool home kits I raised over $4,000 and put together over 2,000 bagged kits by my self. I created delivery routes based on addresses of the youth that signed up and would give each volunteer a list of addresses in a recommended order and numbered ID bags because some bags had 2-4 siblings supplies and each kit was unique. When a volunteer didn't show up or I was short a couple of people, I filled in the routes myself. Over the course of the 8 weeks of delivery, I delivered at least once to each of the 200 and something homes. 

At first I was shocked at some of the homes I would see, some were so poor and devastating that a couple of deliveries were stolen (not sure how someone in the neighborhood thought that twine and beads were valuable enough to take from a little girl). Some homes we delivered to were really well off financially - acres of land, trampolines, pools etc. At first I almost didn't want to deliver to these families that seemed well off, until I got an email from a mother begging for help. Financially she was well off but as far as educating her child went, she ran out of things to do with her child after the first week. The difference in families who all needed help for their youth was sad, I truly saw what the pandemic did to all our families regardless of race, class or status. 

The devastation and loss of so much for everyone was all solidified for me when one delivery day, myself and our volunteers decided to have some real fun with drop off. It was close to Easter and we had Easter baskets donated to include in our kits. One volunteer dressed up as the Easter Bunny and I dressed up as Mini Mouse and we delivered as usual except something  more rewarding than money happened. Kids were so excited to see us they were greeting us at the door through the screen or waving at us from the window. I heard one child (from one of the more affluent houses) shout to his mom "Its Minnie!" and another child who always seemed so shy work up the courage to talk to me and thank me. 

This was the moment in the pandemic that made all the hard work, blisters from putting together kits, lack of sleep and risk of sickness worth it! I realized that despite the wide array of demographics our participating youth all needed the same thing - socialization, consistency and excitement. I also realized that I had been missing this as well. After that moment, I dressed up every week when I delivered. This practice gave me and our families a chance to say hi to each other from a distance (which made our virtual interactions more meaningful), it gave us consistency, we knew what we were doing, how to do it and that it was coming every week, and it allowed us to take even a small break away from the tragedies of COVID-19.