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05/06/2020

Jeff DeGrave Oral History, 2020/05/06

Chippewa Valley COVID-19 Archive

05/06/2020

Philip Larson Oral History, 2020/05/06

This interview is a part of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire HIST 486 seminar class, and its project The Chippewa Valley Covid-19 Archive. The professor is Dr. Cheryl Jimenez Frei.

05/06/2020

Circling

The students are 6th graders at Colorado Academy, a PreK - 12 independent day school in Denver, Colorado. After departing for Spring Break, and not returning to physical school, the students began Learning From Home and taking classes via Zoom. After 8 days in this “new school” the students wrote reflections on their “new reality." They were given complete freedom to craft any type of statement that tapped into their emotions about the change forced upon them by the Coronavirus pandemic. Please note that neither of these pieces was edited by me or by their parents (they actually had not see them until I asked for permission, and I did not read them until they were turned in to be graded).

05/06/2020

Learning From Home

The students are 6th graders at Colorado Academy, a PreK - 12 independent day school in Denver, Colorado. After departing for Spring Break, and not returning to physical school, the students began Learning From Home and taking classes via Zoom. After 8 days in this “new school” the students wrote reflections on their “new reality." They were given complete freedom to craft any type of statement that tapped into their emotions about the change forced upon them by the Coronavirus pandemic. Please note that neither of these pieces was edited by me or by their parents (they actually had not see them until I asked for permission, and I did not read them until they were turned in to be graded).

05/06/2020

Trying to Get Better

Today was really super chill. I woke up pretty late. This has been happening lately. I stretched because one of my goal during this quarantine was to get a split. After stretching I ate breakfast. I was surprisingly hungry this morning. Which is another thing I have noticed during this quarantine. I have been snacking a lot and am always hungry. After I wolfed down breakfast, I did my schoolwork. I can get my school done pretty fast. So, I am trying to do extra work and put my best foot forward in my schoolwork despite the circumstances. I then went to do my daily workout that my swimming coach sent me in hopes of maintaining myself. After I took a nice shower and read a book online. I do not like reading books online, but that is the only way for me to read books from the library. I can’t wait for the all the bans to be lifted so that I can go to the library and get myself a big fat paper book to read. *Original text in "Creator:" Nicole Dumitrascu #LSMS #NSD

Email with the subject "Plummer" stating "What is happing with the Plummer? Is the minister able to help out? Have you been able to talk to Hunter? How is he doing? Sunday is Mother's Day. Do u get to see him or talk to him? Everything is the same her in New Jersey.our schools were cancelled for the rest of this school vear and they have not made a decision about September yet.I do not baby sit the three kids I sat for the past two years just do not want to take the chance they always were little Petrie dishes for colds and flu. How are things going with you? Lots of our communities and churches have food drives for those who are having a hard time
buying food. Does your community and churches? One town even had free dog and cat food and I went to it because I foster cats and kittens and buying all the food for them gets expensive. I got all my kittens
adopted and the momma cat went to a friend of mine. I now have Sabashtion a black cat. He is. Very shy and he got out of the cage and he is hiding under a cabinet in the dinning room. I hope he comes out when he gets hungry. I had two people look at him for adoption but both said he was too afraid of people. He is listed on bet finder so I hope someone can give him
a good home. That is all for tonight.
Love MOMS
Sent from my iPad"

And a second email that says "Our minister is looking into fixing the house. We will get it taken care of. We love our home and we are part of a very caring church community. If it is possible for them to help us out they will. They won't let us suffer housing insecurity with all of this going on but also there are tons of people needing tons of help and as this is not currently a dire emergency (we have running water, it is not in immediate risk of causin. structural harm to the house) helping us has been prioritized appropriately amongst other people who have more immediate problems. Think of it like triage. I have patience because I have trust in our
community. They won't let us down. We are avoiding the food banks at the moment because we have managed each time we have needed it to get food either by using credit or for instance David just started to get unemployment (tho he still doesn't know if he is eligible for the federal expansion... Frustrating and increasingly worrying) and the food banks have seen an approx 5x increase in people needing to use them, one of them here used to ca their services at 170 people a dav now that cap is 1000 and they are still turning people away. We need tr make sure both that people who are really desperate for food can get it and that if it gets to the point where WE get really desperate we will be eligible and not have used up our available chances, the one I mentioned for instance onlv allows you to come every 90 davs. Also goinq requires waiting in line for hours (in cars but still) risking exposure with workers who have been exposed to all of those thousands c people all day. The government already wants to render pointless the sacrifices my family has made by not seeing our son since January 24th, recklessly opening up the economy for the sake of a few dollars and throwing the immense suffering in this country and right in my own house back in our faces. I will do nothing on purpose to risk my health or David's and render those things we sacrificed, all that grief and
time lost completely useless. I donated $35 to Safe Harbor in your name for Mother's Day. They are suffering really badly in the pandemic. they have had to move their shelter operations to hotels to facilitate distancing, the resale sho is closed and all of their Spring fundraisers were canceled. I would probably be dead without Safe Harbo and/or Hunter's biological father a murderer without them, having either killed me or Lizza in the process of abusing us and I definitely want to help them. They said that they would send a Mother's Day letter to the person of your choice with a $35 donation in their name and David got his unemployment the next
dav. Happy Mothers day. I hope that they get it to you on time. Hunter and I get to talk about once a week, tho I send him frequent letters and post cards. We are supposed to talk later today and I will get to see how he is doing since last week, which was better. If he continues to improve he could be looking at coming home in a month or so but it's hard to say because follow up services for a dude like him look very different now. So they may want him to be REALLY stable
before he leaves. I am alad that you are enjoving fostering animals. Hunter wants to volunteer at the animal shelter but I don't know what that is going to look like now with the virus getting worse not better. It's hard to tell wha anvthing is going to look like anymore. My neighbor across the street keeps feeding one of our cats and is making me crazy! She has to eat hairball control food or she throws up everywhere and the neighbor just feeds her whatever then she comes back home and throws it up at our property. We have picked up
all of the plates and bowls, left notes... She just moves them somewhere else and keeps feeding the cat.
Ugh!
Ash
Clan Dragonahast
They/Them"

05/06/2020

Email exchange between my mother and I

This is an email exchange between my mother in Randolph NJ and myself in Taylors, SC. My mother and I have a strained relationship and have only started to communicate again recently in light of the Coronavirus, the fear and uncertainty it has caused, tho I still do not speak with my father or brother. The strained nature of our relationship makes this read almost like a cross between a brief note and a newsletter of current events. It covers so many of the current pressing issues. My mother mentions the schools being closed, being unable to babysit for fear of the virus, fostering cats from the shelter because most animal shelters have closed or severely reduced their indoor kennels and seeking food for those animals from a pet food bank. She also references my son who is in a long term hospital and whom we have been unable to visit since the outbreak. In my reply I talk about being supported in our need for a substantial plumbing repair by our church community but needing patience because there are just so many people in need right now and express similar about our need to go to a food bank at the moment, stating that I want to make sure that people who really can't get food at the moment are able to and expressing fear that we could be exposed to the virus by interacting with the volunteers who are working on overburdened lines. Additionally I tell her that I have donated money to a local domestic violence agency in her name for Mother's day as they helped me years ago and are suffering from a lack of ability to fundraise at the moment. The entire exchange covers so many of the ways that our lives have changed and been affected by the pandemic.

05/06/2020

Joslyn Barragan Oral History, 2020/05/06

This recording is the life changes I have had to go through due to COVID 19. Not only has my life changed but American society as well. This health crisis has brought lots of fear to lose in high risk of being affected. So staying at home has become the new normal for me and most Americans. #CSUS #HIST15H

Two photos of two people cleaning up litter.

05/06/2020

Picking up litter on our neighborhood walks

Photos of my partner and I picking up litter in our Taylors, SC neighborhood during our walk. We wear masks to go out and walk in the neighborhood no matter what but add gloves if we plan to pick up litter. It's hard to feel useful or any sense of control during this time. Doing this while we get out for a little exercise gives us a small feeling of control over our immediate environment and a sense that we are doing something positive for ourselves and our neighbors. It feels better than staying entirely isolated and feeling helpless in the face of all of this fear, grief and loss.

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