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2020-04-18
Entry about 4/17/20: It's sad to think about how different things were only a month ago. On a Friday only a month ago I would have been out with friends, going to clubs at night and partying until I dropped. And now, I just sit in my apartment, sleeping all day and sitting up all night. My friends have all gone home, and I am the only one left that I know in this town. Yep, can't wait for all of this to be over.
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2020-04-17
Una ciudadana de Puno ingreso bailando a una cabina de desinfección de COVID - 19, probablemente entro a hacer compras o trabajar ya que se dirige hacia el interior del mercado. Al momento de ingresar decidió hacer un pequeño baile que fue causa de risas para las personas que estaban a su alrededor. Ademas se muestro contenta y de buen humor a pesar de la situación critica que acarrea el mundo con el corona virus.
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2020-04-07
On a neighborhood walk, our family counted sixteen rocks along two blocks of Edgehill Road painted with positive messages related to the pandemic. Similar rocks have appeared in other communities around the nation, a result of a desire to find new ways to occupy time spent sheltering at home. They offer opportunities either for scavenger hunts and certainly brighten the spirits of passersby. Like the rock pictured here, most of the rocks we saw were propped against tree trunks in what Clevelanders call "tree lawns" (sidewalk strips). After seeing the rocks, our daughter felt inspired, so when we got home we found some rocks, gathered her art supplies, and sat on our front porch to paint some rocks of our own.
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2020-04-15
To beat this game you have to work with the other players to win. This is something we have to do now in real life during this crisis. Matt Leacock is a board game designer who created the game.
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2020-03-22
A discarded nitrile glove on the street
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2020-04-13
This political cartoon plays on an iconic symbol of US national chauvinism: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This tomb, located in Arlington National Cemetery, commemorates the lives of soldiers that were given for our country whose remains cannot be identified. The cartoon draws this tomb and, in place of the original inscription, reads, "Tomb of the Unknown Delivery Guy." In these unprecedented times, Americans have turned to relying on delivery men and women to bring food to their door in order to limit social contact, and thus prevent the spread of the virus. As such, these delivery people's jobs are deemed "essential," whereas they still hold low status within our economic and capitalist system. They are being compared to the unknown soldiers because of a key word: unknown. They are risking infection to supply Americans with food, yet they are still under-valued by those eating the food they supply. While the country's situation should allude to the importance of low status jobs, including but not limited to the delivery people, it is highly likely that after the pandemic has ceased, these workers will continue to be unknown. By employing a well-known "American" symbol, this comparison and social commentary is made abundantly clear to the American people without needing textual explanation.
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2020-03-27
The hotel workers, who are out of a job right now, had the thought to express love to people in the area and it really struck me that is exactly what we all needed at that moment: love. It made me sad for everyone, but gave me hope as well. I posted on Facebook and said: This hotel near where I live has been mostly dark the last few weeks, but tonight they made a nice heart. Love to all of you and all of your families and hope all are healthy and safe!
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2020-03-13
A walk on Friday the 13th. I shot out a roll of photographs on a loaded camera I found around the house. I'd never used the camera before and was unfamiliar with the 2 1/4 inch square negative format. I was able to bike into Manhattan and have this single roll of film processed and scanned at a lab, but now that it's closed I have rolls piling up. My aim is to shoot a single 12 exposure roll during each day of shelter in place.
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2020-04-02
Esther Weber completes a modern dance class over Zoom as they are unable to meet in person. The class meets two times a week, during her normal dance class time. Esther takes the class in the dining room and pushes the table aside to make room. It is an effort to keep some structure and normalcy in her schedule during the pandemic. Esther looks forward to it every week.
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2020-04-16
McHardy's Chicken & Fixins created a pulley system to allow their employees to maintain a safe social distance from customers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In New Orleans, restaurants are considered essential businesses and are allowed to operate for take-out and delivery only.
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2020-04-13
Fellow Associates,
In my emails to you over the past few weeks, I have thanked and applauded the whole C2 Team on how we have adapted so fast into Virtual, while I have also been writing that we might need to adjust as we learn more about the situation and the economy. I had hoped that we would not need to make adjustments. We have held off as long as we could and frankly longer than many companies. However, the environment has further deteriorated and so the time is now.
I want to share with you some critical adjustments we now need to make in the face of these challenging unprecedented times.
First, I want to reinforce how proud I am of the C2 Team in how we have responded to shutting down our centers with skillful, innovative and hard work by so many.
C2 Virtual was developed and launched in an extraordinary fast timeline.
We already have about 60% of the sessions per day as we had before we shut our centers, and about 40% of our students in February have already been in a Virtual session. Our surveys are now showing high satisfaction with Virtual by our students and parents.
Thank you to every single one of our 2,000 associates for embracing the change with Virtual.
However, these times are so uncertain for so many of C2 potential customers and many are just not willing to decide to spend money on our type of services right now. This results in our revenue being only about 25% of a normal level. By continuing to serve our students with our teachers, we are spending money to pay teachers but with only 25% of the revenue coming in. That means we are losing cash and that is not sustainable.
Over the past 3 weeks the leadership team has been trying to secure funding to make up for these losses. Our main shareholder and investor, Serent Capital, is being very supportive with extra capital and we are trying to get a loan from the SBA and the Cares Act. However, those efforts will not be sufficient to weather the current storm. We now need to temporarily adjust the numbers of our associates to enable C2 to get financially through this COVID -19 period.
These are planned to be temporary COVID-19 adjustments and to be in place for the next 3 months.
I will refer to “furloughs" and I want to first explain a furlough. Someone who is on furlough has their pay suspended temporarily but can keep benefits such as health. Importantly they are still employees of the company. They are NOT “Laid off”. They can be asked to come back into the workplace again at any time. While on furlough one can get unemployment benefits including the higher amounts from the two trillion dollar Cares Act.
These adjustment plans have been carefully worked on by the ESC leadership team and the RVPs. We have had two overriding goals:
- to be sure we continue to serve our existing students and are as well positioned as possible to regain momentum once the centers can open and the environment improves.
- to take care of our employees as much as possible. So we are adjusting with furloughs rather than layoffs, enabling the continuation of everyone’s C2 benefits.
Here are the broad details.
-The ESC will reduce costs by 60% with half of the associates being furloughed, and with salary cuts for all the remaining ESC associates and RVPs in amounts ranging depending on salary... starting with myself at 50% and then down in percentage tiers from that.
-We will keep all our centers open in the Virtual world. Some centers will move into combined lobbies, but with no changes in experience for our students or teachers.
-We will have to operate with many less associates spread across the virtual centers.
-For District Managers, half will be going on furlough or changing their duties.
-For our Center Directors and Education Coordinators, 40% will be going on furlough.
-Our teachers will continue as per the student schedules.
Even after these cuts, we will be losing cash each month and this cash loss difference will be supported by our investors until we come out of this period when we can re-build with our re-opened centers and returning associates.
Over the next few hours, the leadership team will be sharing with each one of you how this impacts you.
These adjustments will be effective at the end of tomorrow.
The rest of today and all of tomorrow will be considered Hand Off Days to ensure we can continue to serve our students. To minimize the impact on our students and their families, I trust we will all act as One Team over these two days with a high level of professionalism no matter how we are each impacted.
In all my years as a leader, I could never have imagined that I would encounter such a situation in such unprecedented times. It’s never easy making changes like furloughs but it is especially difficult personally in such a great engaging, inspiring, values-driven and growing company as C2, and when it is of this magnitude, being in response to something that is entirely out of everyone’s control. C2 is so personal to us all. This really hurts all our hearts.
It is all of our hope that once the centers can open we will be able to ramp up our business and bring associates back to engage again in C2. As the environment and confidence improves, families will find ways to pay for C2’s great services.
I know the next days and months will be very tough. I wish all those going on furlough well and I thank those who remain and who will often take on a different scope of responsibilities.
As we go though our different journeys, drawing on courage and resilience, I wish that you and your families stay healthy.
In closing, whether on furlough or still working at C2, we are all connected in the C2 spirit. It runs through our veins.
In spirit, we are still ONE TEAM with ONE PURPOSE.
Best,
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2020-04-10
Today is the first day I haven’t had a Zoom meeting or class, and I have loads of “homework” from three of them. I celebrated after my last Zoom meeting, a travel writing group I’ve been attending for almost two years, by watching a movie—The Goldfinch, based on a book by Donna Tartt that I read a few years ago. I loved the book, but it didn’t make a very good movie. But I was moved by the last scene, where the protagonist finds that the painting he stole from the Metropolitan Museum when he was 12 years old was found, and along with it many other stolen masterpieces, including a Rembrandt. “See,” says Boris, the drug-dealing friend of Theo, “Good can come from bad.” It seemed so à propos for today. I’m in the phase of this pandemic where I’m now looking for the good that can come from this. The stepping stone that I initially saw as a stumbling block. The hope one can see when before there was only hopelessness.
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2020-04-08
Feelings concerning people who have the COVID-19 virus.
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2020-04-06
Description of feelings on Boris Johnson getting the COVID-19 virus.
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2020-04-06
Perspective of how deaths can have a tremendous effect on people.
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2020-04-05
Description of statistics related to death and how it compares to COVID-19 deaths.
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2020-04-17
A fundraiser to provide assistance to New Orleans unhoused population. The fundraiser description is as follows: "There are reportedly 1200 unhoused people in New Orleans. More than 420 of them live on the street where they are deprived of access to running water, soap, shelter, and basic food supplies. This makes them a particularly vulnerable group during the Covid 19 pandemic in addition to the hardships and exploitations they already endure. Very little is being done on a federal level to service this population. Despite reports that the homeless people of New Orleans are being relocated to local hotels, only 175 of them have been relocated thus far. The immobile, those who experience mental instability, those who do not speak English and the undocumented will face difficulties assessing the already limited shelter even if more is provided. We are distributing supplies and food daily to those on the street, while attempting to share social distancing guidelines and information about resources throughout the city. Additionally, we are following CDC guidelines while preparing and distributing food."
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2020-03-27
Description of priorities and the important things in life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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2020-04-17
A charge.org petition to improve conditions for incarcerated youth in Louisiana during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
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2020-03-15
This is a photo I took while walking in the park. It is nothing extraordinary it is just a picture of a leafless tree with several birds nests sitting in its branches. I took it because I remember feeling really off that day. I had that feeling in my stomach and arms, the feeling you get where you are anxious but you do not fully know why. Work was hectic, outside seemed to quiet to be outside and something about this tree captured a normalcy I wished I felt part of at the time. I can not say this virus is what scares me. I am not underestimating the abilities of an illness with no vaccine but I feel if anything, it is people that have scared me. The second it seems that the world is not working in our favor we have turned against one another, hoarded, fought, been unsympathetic in nature to the only other beings that can truly understand how we feel. While all the while, the birds remain unfazed, building their nests in their trees.
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2020-04-11
A Squat Deeper video series I have been making to use the Manic energy I have had during quarantine. You will see its dedicated to Seniors: both seniors in high school/college that are losing their last term, and the elderly who are suffering most from this virus.
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2020-04-17
Actors staying connected through Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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2020-04-10
Living in a house with a wife, 2 teenage daughters, and a dog, I have had manic energy that finds me outside for several hours a day, regardless of weather. I have released part of that energy by practicing and videoing softball skills (and 'dance' moves, in another submission [Squat Deeper]).
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2020-04-14
Description of grocery stores implementing regulations to stop the spread of COVID-19 in Massachusetts.
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2020-04-10
This image is a collage of my aunt preparing Italian beefs for the people in the neighborhood more so the homeless since many of the restaurants are closed. We gave out plates on the West side of Chicago.
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2020-04-14
This image was taken in Champaign Illinois at a student housing facility for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In the image you see basketball rims without the hoops on them. Since the COVID-19 pandemic and orders to social distance, landlords have been shutting down common spaces as well as taking hoops off the basketball rims.
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2020-04-17
California legislators on Friday (April 17) announced changes to the language of Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), intending to ensure fair treatment for gig economy workers in the music industry without inhibiting their ability to create and collaborate.
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2020-04-16
Ampled blends platform familiarity (users of Patreon or Kickstarter will get it immediately) with a punky, ‘zine-like look and feel that reflects its grassroots emphasis. Its own description on its website – “100% owned by artists, workers, and community – not vulture capitalists” – sets out its stall to be additive rather than subtractive for the current music business.
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2020-04-17
The Recording Academy's philanthropic arm is offering grants to music industry professionals whose livelihood has been affected by the pandemic. MusiCares' COVID-19 Relief Fund is being supported by Spotify through its COVID-19 Music Relief project. Spotify is making a donation to this and all organizations listed, and will match public donations made via the above linked page dollar-for-dollar up to a total Spotify contribution of $10 million.
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2020-04-17
A history teacher's perspective of COVID-19 pandemic in his journal.
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2020-04-17
Despite aggressive national measures that the Peruvian government took to combat COVID-19, Peru still has one of the largest outbreaks. In part, systemic sanitation issues and social norms contributed.Link to the article.
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2020-04-06
Personal blog
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2020-03-28
Description of walking trails being more crowded during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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2020-04-07
Reflection of having one's day slow down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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2020-04-17
This is an entry from my journal dated 4/7/2020. Ambulance sirens have been the dominant noise on the streets of NYC during this crisis. On this date, I decided to record every ambulance siren I heard passing through my neighborhood of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.
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2020-04-17
Reflection of wearing a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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2020-04-07
Reflection of India's education system during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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2020-03-15
These are poems I've written about what lockdown has been like -- some humor, some grief
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2020-04-17
Reflection about not being able to visit relatives during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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2020-04-13
This is a video of my personal experience of the Pandemic.
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2020-04-12
A community project that invites passers by to find a rock, take it home to paint, and bring it back as a contribution to a neighborhood rock garden. This is just one of many instances I've seen in which people are creating safe ways to connect with others. The result is actually a greater sense of community as we invent ways to reach out to each other during a crisis.
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2020-04-10
Description of someone who experienced having the COVID-19 illness.
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2020-04-16
My little hand-production company (custom hand painted fabrics for interiors)?agut down operations Match 18. Everyone was load off and I suddenly found myself working from home for the first time in 42 years. To keep us together spiritually I posted shots of our home activities, and it came to pass that masks took over., 3 of my work team of young people decided on their own individually to make masks at the very beginning of this. I thought quietly to myself, ho hum whatever. They taught me a lesson without meaning to. I sure as heck never thought I’d be caught dead in a mask - I had read the science back then, 4 weeks ago. It turns out, intuitively, they were on to something. Finally on April 16 so I put one on just to say - right on, next gen- you got this one! Just a tiny example of how the sweeping pandemic is blowing out all our preconceptions.
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2020-04-16
Description of someone's opinion of shutting down society during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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2020-04-16
Description of grocery shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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2020-04-03
Boulevard American Bistro in Metairie hangs large signs outside the restaurant with words of encouragement, Sign reads exactly, "Six Feet Apart But Closer Than Ever!"
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2020-04-01
The post reads exactly, "Swamp and NOLA misses y'all!! We can't wait to see you again! #staysafe #nolalove #swamp #practicesocialdistancing."
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03/23/2020
Drago's restaurants in Metairie and Baton Rouge remain open for business while implementing safety procedures such as checking employees' temperatures.
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2020-04-07
The post reads, "Thank you newly elected State Representative Charles Henry for allowing us to serve the Governor and his staff at GOHSEP today," Photograph shows a table full of Drago's TO-Go boxes.
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2020-04-09
Drago's NOLA promotes a DIY charbroiled oyster kit for customers to practice social distancing, but still enjoy the restaurants' famous oysters.
