My Frustration with COVID-19

I counted 146 cars lined up for food in an aerial photo of the Door County Food Pantry Coalition’s distribution at the Sturgeon Bay fairgrounds Aug. 5. The photo was taken 15 minutes before the first box was even handed out. Looking at the line, I was frustrated, and I was embarrassed.

Like so many of us, I’ve been frustrated by how much COVID-19 has disrupted my life and that of my wife and children. Yet I’m embarrassed because my personal discomfort is nothing compared to the struggles some people are facing in our community – people such as those who lined up Aug. 5 for that most basic of necessities: food.

I’m frustrated that we didn’t get to properly celebrate the accomplishments of our youngest son, Kekoa, who graduated from UW-Madison at the age of 19 after completing his degree in just two years. Instead of marching into Camp Randall to accept his degree in mathematics and economics, Kekoa stared at a computer screen and watched a commencement speaker make an address from his kitchen table.

I’m frustrated because our middle son, Bret Jr., worked hard to graduate from college in three years and earn an enormous scholarship from Michigan State College of Law, only to be told just four days after he arrived in Michigan that his classes were all moving online.

I’m frustrated because our middle daughter, Nalani, moved into her freshman dorm at UW-La Crosse but has to remain largely isolated from other students. I’m frustrated because our youngest daughter, Malia, is attending her junior year of high school online from a lonely corner of our house.

The list of my frustrations goes on and on. My wife, Cari, and I didn’t play volleyball this summer. We can’t spend Sunday mornings with our church family. Our trips to Florida, Texas and South Carolina were all canceled. Our weekly trivia night with friends over dinner and beer at the Brick Lot is a distant memory.

But my family is incredibly lucky compared to many others. We are not one of the 6 million Americans who have contracted the virus. My wife and I were not furloughed from work, nor are we among the 40 million people who have lost their job. There are many people whose lives have been disrupted in ways far more profound than anything my family has endured.

That day at the fairgrounds, 500 people received food from the coalition. A week later, the coalition set up another food-distribution event in Sister Bay for families in northern Door County. It has been doing this all summer long. The coalition (FeedDoorCounty.org), in partnership with United Way, has been hosting food-distribution events at various locations for several months. These massive efforts are coordinated by people who are far more organized than I am, so when I do attend, I simply try not to get in the way.

At one of these events, the coalition ran out of food, so I was asked to speak with families that we had to turn away. I told an older woman whose husband had dementia that we couldn’t help them that day. I told a young woman with three small children in the back seat of a very old car that we had run out of food. She broke down crying.

As frustrating as COVID-19 is to me, I cannot fathom how frustrating this health and economic crisis is for those who aren’t as lucky and privileged as I am.

Although July and August have been strong months in tourism, Door County got a late start. It also seems likely that far fewer buses with leaf-seeking visitors will be here this fall. The most recent Door County unemployment rate was almost three times normal. Many local families that live off seasonal wages won’t earn enough this summer to carry them through the winter.

It’s unrealistic for me to feel no frustration about the many life experiences that this virus is stealing from my family. Yet I must also remember how comfortable my life truly is. Although it’s beyond my power to solve my family’s small frustrations, it is completely within my power to help alleviate the much bigger struggles that many in our community face.

Please join me by giving to the Door County Emergency Response Fund (RespondDoorCounty.org). As a partnership between the Door County Community Foundation and United Way, the Emergency Response Fund creates and supports projects such as the Food Pantry Coalition and the Rental Assistance Program (RentReliefDoorCounty.org). As the weather turns cold and jobs dwindle, we will face a very difficult off-season. We can get through it if we support one another as a community.

This column was written by Bret Bicoy, the President and CEO of the Door County Community Foundation and originally appeared in the Peninsula Pulse.

Think About Who’s Asking You to Wear a Mask

Pretend for a moment that the governor did not issue an order requiring everyone in Wisconsin wear a mask. Imagine that you’ve never heard of Dr. Fauci, and the president doesn’t tweet. Consider a world with no talking heads on cable news fostering division to drum up ratings, and no politicians exploiting the pandemic for partisan political purposes.

In this imaginary world, COVID-19 is still here, but the only people you can hear from are the health professionals around you.

In that simpler and quieter existence, how would you respond if your friends at Door County Medical Center told you that wearing a mask will dramatically reduce the spread of the virus in Door County? What would you do if your neighbors at Door County Public Health asked you to wear a mask because it protects vulnerable people around you?

During our evening exercise walk through Sturgeon Bay, my lovely wife and I regularly cross paths with the CEO of our hospital. Every day, we walk by the home of our public-health officer. These aren’t Washington politicians or Madison bureaucrats. They are Door County folks whom we know personally. They and their colleagues are the same people whom my wife and I have been trusting to look after our family’s health for many years.

I suspect that in this imaginary world, the hyperbole and vitriol that have characterized the wearing of masks would quickly come to an end. There would be no politics involved. It would just be our friends and neighbors – who also happen to be our trusted health professionals – telling us that if everyone wears a mask, we will dramatically reduce the spread of the virus and keep our vulnerable friends and neighbors safe.

Still, if only a handful of us wear a mask, nothing will happen. It takes all of us to act if we’re going to accomplish our goal of eradicating this virus. And there’s something beautiful about the symmetry of this truth: The path to protecting the Door County community requires us to come together in a spirit of community and take collective action as a united community.

We human beings are at our very best when we support one another. Working for the Door County Community Foundation, every day I see generous people doing incredible things to improve this community.

The most obvious form of generosity is the money they give to help others. For instance, at the Community Foundation, our Emergency Response Fund has received about $800,000 in contributions that are now being used to provide food, pay rent and help families that are struggling during this global pandemic and the resulting recession. (You can learn more at RespondDoorCounty.org.) But generosity isn’t limited by your ability to write a big check.

We all know about the heroism of emergency responders: the professionals we count on to be on the front line of any crisis. During this crisis, our community has also been blessed with “everyday responders”: ordinary people who have stepped forward to volunteer and help however they can. Everyday responders have been delivering meals, staffing food pantries, taking care of kids, sewing face masks and doing many other selfless things to keep our community strong.

Yet perhaps the simplest form of generosity is ultimately the one that will have the most dramatic effect on our community – but only if we all do it together as a community. It’s the simple act of wearing a mask.

Goodness knows that I don’t know about the legality or constitutionality of the governor’s order requiring all of us to wear a mask. I do suspect that if it’s constitutional for a government to require me to wear pants so that the community is spared from having to look at my private parts, it’s probably also constitutional for the government to require me to wear a mask so that the community is spared from any virus I might spread. But hey, what do I know?

Regardless, wearing a mask isn’t about legality, or constitutionality, or even liberty. Wearing a mask is about community. It’s an act of generosity. Wearing a mask is each of us doing our part to keep our community safe.

This article, written by Door County Community Foundation President and CEO Bret Bicoy, originally appeared in the Peninsula Pulse.