That is the question I asked this week to people I interviewed during the last two months from my dining room “office.” The answers I received reflected the toughness and optimism that has sustained people who were knocked off their feet by coronavirus and managed to get up, dig in, and carry on.
Ted Dillard and his fellow Lynn Brickyard Collaborative innovators and crafts people made more than 4,000 masks and other personal protective equipment for front-line workers since March.
“I’ve seen that when you give people an outlet they grab onto it,” Dillard said.
Coronavirus stopped Olio, a Peabody wedding planning business, in its tracks as one couple after another called Sarah Narcus and her mother and canceled their plans.
“It felt like a gut punch,” Narcus said, adding, “But I’ve had couples email and call just to check on me.”
Lynn Ward 6 City Councilor Fred Hogan saw a food distribution collaborative launched locally two months deliver its 17,000th food box. He said councilors, firefighters and local residents have pitched in to get food into the hands of grateful people sheltering in place in their homes. City Council Dean Richard Colucci delivers 15 to 20 meals a night, said Hogan.
Jovan Ector served in the Navy and leaped at the chance to volunteer with Food4Vets, a North Shore Community College-based initiative based on the Danvers campus. He put his military training to use to comply with mask-wearing and social distancing rules and said it is important to look “at the bigger picture” when it comes to enduring, then conquering, coronavirus.
When coronavirus closed Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company, its sponsor organization, The Haven Project, turned the Lynn shop into a drop-in center for the homeless youth Haven helps and reached out to clients through Zoom online technology. “My staff has been very innovative,” said Haven Executive Director Gini Mazman.
Saugus’ Michael Boudreau said his dedication to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s charitable work has been mirrored by other organizations, including Healthy Saugus Healthy Students, that stepped up to provide meals and other aid.
“It’s unbelievable the way people have come out of the woodwork,” Boudreau said.
Like Narcus, Jim Appleton of Lynn saw his event-dependent business slammed by coronavirus. Help from the federal Payroll Protection Program has allowed Appleton to keep all of his 15 employees working.
“We’re hanging in there,” he said.
Marco Fontan admits he is going crazy stuck at home without the social life befitting a young man. But the former Swampscott Whole Foods employee said his hopes are buoyed when he ventures out and sees people abiding by social distancing and mask-wearing protocol.
Normally Lynnfield Center’s focal point, the historic town Meeting House is quiet this spring with the class reunions, bridal and baby showers that normally fill the building canceled due to coronavirus. Lynnfield Historical Society President Linda Gillon predicted events won’t be booked into the Meeting House until at least August.
“I’m kind of built for this,” said Peabody teacher Diane Bugler describing her reaction to coronavirus’ stay-at-home directives. She misses her Brown School fifth graders and said the biggest surprise she has experienced in the last two months has been her students nimble adaption to online learning.
When coronavirus hit locally, Dr. Julie Tammaro of Lynnfield retooled an invention called the intubation box to help protect medical workers and worked with her brother-in-law to design, manufacture and distribute, to date, more than 330 boxes. She said community businesses, including a Groveland firm and Staples came to her aid to package and ship the protective devices.
Saugus Pastor Frank Lowe said his Cliftondale Church of the Nazarene congregation has sustained the church financially during coronavirus and adapted quickly to Zoom services. Lowe is coordinating reopening planning with two other congregations that use the church building, as well as Girl Scouts and recovery groups.
“We realized we still were able to be the church. The building is the building; we are the church,” he said.
These dozen pillars of strength banish coronavirus’ darkness with hope and light. But important beacons of light have been lost, including William Joseph, the great Lynn Haitian leader who founded the Haitian flag-raising annual City Hall ceremony, and Frances Taggart, a Lynn community activist who was described perfectly in her obituary as “selfless and unwavering” in her love for the community and her commitment to it. We miss them.
