Creative kindness in the time of Covid

My niece Lizzy will write you a poem if you send her a line.

My friend Diane tucks postage stamps, homemade candy and home grown flowers in May Day baskets she distributes around the neighborhood.

Another friend is a gifted fitness instructor and has organized a small driveway boot camp.

By midweek, Amanda will have whipped up 500 face masks that she donates upon request, as well as to Ascension Medical Group, Wisconsin Face Mask Warriors, BenShot (a small Appleton-based business providing masks) and also through a container she keeps in her front yard, with a sign that says “Need a mask? Free”.

Julia bakes beautiful sourdough bread loaves that she sells and then donates the proceeds to the Freedom Center Food Pantry.

Catherine has been using her photograph skills to take front porch pictures of people quarantined together, including all the residents of Richmond Terrace. The project created a cool keepsake portrait for each group, and also documented this incredible time in history.

Creative kindness has been bubbling to the surface like yeast in a sourdough starter as we all navigate this crazy time period. You don’t even have to look very hard to find examples. It’s there in the sidewalk art laboriously created and then cheerfully recreated after each rain. And in the construction paper hearts posted in windows all over town. And in the outside-the-box ways we’re connecting socially while distancing responsibly.

Our lives have become more challenging in ways we never could have imagined, but our values have remained not only true but also more sharply focused. I believe as a people we are rising to this historic challenge.

But, we have a ways to go. So, thank you to Lizzie, Diane, Amanda, Julia, Catherine and everyone else out there who is using talent and creativity to help us through.

We will get through this. One act of kindness at a time.