pen next, but you can just relax your shoulders, take a deep breath and take it one step at a time. You can bring those skills right to nursing, especially in circumstances like COVID. When you’re slammed with all these new patients – it’s a new disease and not everyone knows what they’re doing and what the care plan is – you just have to take a deep breath, go with what you know and take care of that patient one step at a time.” Both Gillian and Harry Adynski also took from the skills in college fencing, where a team approach is more present and the need to be flexible and change course when needed is a prevalent skill. “All sorts of policies are changing every day for us as nurses, so it’s being adaptable and being able to take things as they come,” Harry Adynski said. “I think definitely the teamwork aspect of that, it’s required that you’re going to have to work in a team, but also just being able to adapt and change the situation as needed.”
COACHING AND COMPETING THROUGH COVID-19 Since last March, COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on sports at all levels. As a volunteer assistant coach for UNC, Gillian Adynski saw the effect COVID-19 had on collegiate athletics with NCAA Championships being canceled, and athletes who had worked to reach the pinnacle of college athletics would never get the chance to compete for a national championship. Now, the team is fencing again, but deals with an uncertainty in what effect COVID-19 will have moving forward, something Adynski can relate to. As a fencer herself who still competes, Adynski knows how much competition motivates many athletes, but also sees the importance of being out on the strip. “Hopefully most fencers can relate to the fact that fencing is really great for everyone’s mental health, and not just because when you’re on the strip you’re focused and it’s a physical activity and it has all those health benefits in itself, but I’d also like to speak to the fencing community as a whole, and that’s one of the reasons why fencing is such a relief,” Gillian Adynski said. “How many of my fencing community friends checked on me during this time, made sure I was okay because I was working at a hospital during this time, asked me if I needed food dropped off. The fencing community is a very special community that does look out for each other.” Acevedo also could relate to the importance of fencing in his life during these challenging times. While his club did close temporarily due to COVID-19, he is now offering private lessons again with coaching serving as a welcome distraction to his work as a paramedic. It also brings him a level of joy to know the relief and sense of normalcy fencing gives his students.
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MAKING A DIFFERENCE ON THE SIDELINES Thirteen-year-old Matthew Mejia is proving that you’re never too young to start making a difference. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the foil fencer from Bellaire, Texas began researching mask patterns and sewing masks with leftover fabric. “I started sewing masks because my mom – she’s a doctor – and her hospital had a really short supply of PPE, personal protective equipment,” Mejia said. “So I would sew a mask for her to cover her surgical mask and make it last longer.” When his masks and their fun patterns were noticed by coworkers and wanted ones too, Mejia – who learned to sew at a camp last summer – began making more masks, also supplying them to elderly neighbors, family and friends, including those as his club. During the pandemic, Mejia has made more than 100 masks. “It’s important because even though there is a lot of turmoil, there is a lot of distress, anxiety, there is a lot of negativity, there is something that can be positive,” Mejia said. “Whenever when I give a mask, it’s so nice that there’s joy in doing that, so it’s not only just to make masks, but it’s also to protect people and to give joy to them.”
MATTHEW MEJIA IN ONE OF THE 100+ MASKS HE MADE DURING THE PANDEMIC.