Women Employed Snapshots of Life During COVID-19: Corinne Kodama
Spring break during a pandemic: sewing face masks, “staycationing,” and packing up my college kid’s residence hall room from 2,000 miles away
Like many of you, right now we are on spring break, and were supposed to be on a big family vacation with my parents, brother’s family, and friends. Instead we are “sheltering-in-place” (one of the many new phrases that is now part of our collective vocabulary), “social distancing” from our friends (though I prefer “physical distancing”), “e-learning,” and remote working. However, we are lucky. Women Employed has the technology which allows me to work from home, my husband works in a sterile and not very populated science lab, and we’re all kind of homebodies anyway so on some level this has not really disrupted our lives significantly if I’m honest. Except for my college son who was attending college at the largest campus in Washington state (the epicenter of the first major coronavirus outbreak).
His campus was the first major university to move all classes online. We were trying to figure out if/when we should bring him back to Chicagoland given that we were supposed to meet him out West for said vacation (which two weeks ago was still on). Long story short, we managed to get him home, courtesy of a previously purchased ticket and a waived change fee due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
A week later the university said they were going online for the rest of the year. They encouraged students to stay at home and offered the option to move out of the residence halls. Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, we didn’t want to involve my parents who live 2 ½ hours away for fear of exposing them to illness — because they are older, they are in the high-risk group. Our other friends in the area are also hunkered down and don’t want to leave the house. The university contracts with a company to provide packing and storage, but it was very expensive. So we’ve been working our personal networks — so far his roommate was able to take about half his stuff to his house, the rest we are trying to get a friend to take for us if it works out.
However, these disruptions are nothing compared to the students who may not have the money to return home — or no home to return to at all. For some, losing their residence hall room means not only losing a place to live, but also meals, which might have been covered by financial aid but now they will now have to pay for out of pocket. Housing and food insecurity are now immediate.
Additionally, many students do not have wi-fi or laptops to do work remotely as education moves completely online. They may have lost work-study or other campus jobs they count on for living expenses. They may not have an appropriate space at home to do their work without campus libraries or quiet spaces–most public libraries are closed. As K-12 schools go online, college students may now have to care for or homeschool their younger siblings. The ability to access and complete college, which has long been a focus of Women Employed, is even more difficult for low-income students than it was before COVID-19
As a result, Women Employed’s policy team has been busier than ever. Two weeks ago, WE participated in a press conference calling for better paid sick days policies in Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois. Last week WE led a conference call with Chicagoland educators and nonprofit leaders to discuss COVID-19 challenges to college students and how we can support them moving forward. Earlier this week I was on a conference call with 100+ policymakers and advocates regarding the paid sick days and medical leave provisions in the federal coronavirus relief packages. WE has sent out more action alerts in the last two weeks than the last two months. Policies that provide financial stability for working people, including paid sick time and paid family and medical leave, have long been priorities for WE, but this pandemic has made clear why those policies are so important, especially to hourly and low-paid workers that keep our society going in a time such as this, including frontline healthcare workers, grocery store clerks, and delivery drivers.
But I’ll be honest, while this work is especially important at this time, it’s also been a little stressful. Constantly reading how workers and students have been negatively impacted by the pandemic and having to monitor daily press briefings on COVID-19 has not been great for my mental health. I haven’t slept well in a couple of weeks and have this constant pit in my stomach. However, while the news can be overwhelming, in recent days I’ve found a welcome shift to positive stories about what people are doing for others, not just in terms of the policy work that WE is embedded in, but neighborly acts of kindness and community building. Which brings me back to spring break.
So I decided to take a couple of days off work after all, including taking my work email notifications off my phone and computer, which even after a day I felt much better. I had a virtual “coffee break” with two of my best friends. We got takeout from one of our favorite ‘fancy’ restaurants (after all, it was our anniversary). Inspired by a news story, I started making face masks from fabric scraps given the dire shortage, both for friends but also to donate to workers at local grocery stores, nursing homes, and health clinics. Oh — and we think we have found someone who can hopefully help us get all of my son’s stuff out of his residence hall room!.
I am well aware that many workers do not have the same benefits as I do: paid sick days, ability to work remotely, and the ability to take a spring break. Thank a grocery store clerk, healthcare worker, or delivery driver. And join our Action Network to continue to advocate for those who keep our society running, even during a pandemic. That’s something you can do while you are staying safe at home — something that could have a lasting and positive impact long past our current situation.
