Items

• 2020-05-13

  Life during quarantine in the Coachella Valley

  Our city is known as the City of Festivals; we host several festivals throughout the year. Two of the largest festivals, Coachella and Stagecoach, have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This means a great deal of money and jobs have been lost. Here in the Coachella Valley, we are considered a tourist region, so when tourists can't come or events are cancelled, it is devastating. I was supposed to work at both festivals to help subsidize income for my family. Now, that has been made unavailable. And I am left looking for other ways to bring necessary funds into my household. Not having the festivals and several other events at our many Casinos has been really disparaging. We also have hundreds of Golf courses and resorts. This has put a lot of our people out of work. This also brings a damper to all of the other resources that help make these festivals and events complete. All of the maintenance, food vendors, and other vendors have also lost out of money. I actually work at a Boys and Girls Club and we have been shut down since March 16th. Although, I am still getting paid, it has not been as much as it normally would and that has hurt our family. We have four clubhouses here in the Coachella Valley with thousands of students; having to see these kids not being able to get together and play and have a place to escape for a while has been difficult. We have implemented virtual clubhouse programs to help keep the community connected. Although, that has been made difficult because several of our more eastern cities are more rural. These cities do not have great internet service. Therefore, several students cannot access activities and/or even participate in distance-learning. It is really sad to see how some of our students have not been able to get the help they need.