SPOTLIGHT
HOW THE PANDEMIC HAS SHAPED JLW MEMBERS
W
hile the news has been filled with story after story about how COVID-19 has impacted everything from the global economy to local small businesses over the past year, it can be easy to forget that this pandemic impacts people right in our backyard and in our very own Junior League of Washington (JLW). Between weddings being delayed, virtual school, parents working from home, worries about sick family members, and difficulty with the changing global environment, the impacts of this virus have been widespread and hard to manage alone. To share some of the impacts, a few of our fellow JLW members have agreed to speak about their experience through this unprecedented year. Kate Shadlock, who is in her first active year, has felt the impacts of COVID-19 in a number of ways. Just after COVID-19 hit the U.S. in late March of 2020, she was accepted to business school at UVA Darden to pursue her MBA. Like many other students, her classes moved online for the fall semester and disrupted her plans to move to Charlottesville, Virginia. Adjusting to the online semester presented its own unique set of challenges for her as she worked to figure out where she wanted to live, how to find the privacy and quiet space to attend classes, and how to navigate forming relationships with her new classmates in a virtual environment. One way that she forged relationships with her classmates and helped form study groups was through Instagram; after a few months of school, she began using the Instagram Stories feature to reach out to classmates, explain difficult subjects, and share study tips. Business school was not the only thing that became more difficult for Shadlock in
Bailey Oedewaldt the virtual environment. Looking for internships to supplement her business school experience became competitive. She found herself spending more than a month going through multi-round, multi-hour interviews for low-paying internships that offered hardly enough to pay rent but had become highly coveted, despite her years of experience. After a number of interviews, she landed an internship with a major investment firm and is excited for the opportunity to spend the 2021 summer working in her new role. Another active member, who asked to speak anonymously for this article, experienced a major staff shortage at the beginning of 2021 as COVID-19 spread through part of her team. Her team took rotating days in the office, but when a COVID-19 outbreak impacted the floor she worked on, she found herself with only three members of the team – including herself – who could go into the office. In response, she doubled down on her hours in the office, spending more time at work to ensure that they had enough coverage to finish their daily and weekly tasks. This left her feeling burnt out after almost a year of working in the pandemic and over a month of working extra hours in the office – all without being vaccinated. She said she has now received the vaccine through her job, but still has concerns about going into the office so often. “It’s scary,” she said. “To know that this happened even when we were doing everything right – limiting our hours in office, wearing masks, social distancing, rotating who was in on what day. I feel very grateful to be vaccinated now, but I have to wonder what else we could have done to keep people from getting sick. For my team, it felt like too little, too late.” Another concern that has impacted League members is worry about the disease
impacting the community, friends, and family members. Even in my own family, there is a growing concern for my grandparents – all of whom are elderly and two of whom have major health issues – including one with a recent lung cancer diagnosis and another with ongoing heart issues. While my family is lucky enough to have the privilege to work from home to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission, that is not the case for many members of JLW who are still out working in critical roles. Concern for family and friends, for small businesses, for coworkers and colleagues, has become a widespread issue throughout the pandemic and has added an additional level of stress to these trying times. However, one look at the Junior League Facebook pages show that the JLW community cares deeply about one another. From supporting posts about local small businesses and alerting members to job opportunities, to creating fitness groups to foster a sense of togetherness to sharing information about how the League is still able to serve our DMV area communities, JLW members have come together to lift one another up during these difficult times. While the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing, vaccinations are slowly making their way to the population and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Until then, the JLW community will continue to support one another and the local community. As the League year draws to a close – and the now passed one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic causing a major shift in everyone’s lives – it is important to remember how this virus has impacted not only global operations, but also individuals, and to remember that, despite everything, JLW remains a resilient and compassionate community.
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