In Part 2 of this episode, we’ll explore the theme of cooperation further with two more stories, from a volunteer and an organizer.
Our first story is from neuroscientist (and Story Collider senior producer!) Paula Croxson. Longing for connection, Paula decides to volunteer at a local hospital, despite her anxiety about the risks.
In our second story, organizer Kiani Conley-Wilson struggles to figure out how she can effect change during the pandemic.
Listen to Part 1 of this episode here.
Story Transcripts
Story 1: Paula Croxson
It’s early April 2020 and I'm walking north through Harlem toward the hospital. I'm wearing a face mask that I stitched last night out of some old bed sheets and a piece of ribbon. As I'm walking, I realize I've made my face mask wrong. It's clinging to my face and it's really tight and I can't really breathe properly.
So here's the thing. I haven't actually been outside my apartment for over two weeks at this point. A couple of weeks ago back in mid-March I wake up with a fever and whole body aches and I've completely lost my sense of smell. There are no COVID tests available for people with mild symptoms so I just quarantine myself for 14 days and hope for the best.
As I'm starting to feel better, I see the call for volunteers to go in and help out at the hospital. I call my family to talk it over with them. And when I call my dad, he tells me that he doesn't want me to go in, but that if he was in my position he would do it and he understands why.
Paula Croxson on stage during less socially distanced times. Paula is a senior producer at Story Collider, and has produced several of the stories in our Stories of COVID-19 series.
At the end of the call, we're both in tears. I don't think I've ever seen my very British dad cry before. But even before I've hung up the phone with him, I know that I'm going to go in and do it. I just feel as if I have to do something to help.
I have a PhD in neuroscience so I have almost zero useful skills in an emergency. But what I do have going for me is that I'm low risk, or maybe I've even had COVID. I live alone and I live exactly 30 minutes walking distance from the hospital.
So I find myself walking north through Harlem and I realize that there's nothing wrong with my face mask. I'm just panicking. I'm panicking because I haven't been outside for two weeks. I'm panicking because I haven't seen anybody for over two weeks. And New York is a very different landscape now.
As I approach the hospital, I walk past rows of white tents. I can only imagine what they're for. Once I get into the lobby, the panic of the walk turns in to an eternity of waiting, waiting for the supervisor to come meet us in the lobby, waiting downstairs in an empty meeting room while people rush around us.
I should be annoyed that they're making us wait so long. We're volunteering after all, but weirdly I'm not. I mean everyone's really busy and really stressed and also it's just really nice to sit with another volunteer, another human being and have a face-to-face conversation.
Eventually, they remember us and they take us to the conference center, except it's not the conference center anymore. There are rows and rows of makeshift beds that have been hastily built with partitions between each pair. And between each pair there is a huge oxygen cylinder.
Our job is to make the beds. We're given piles of sheets that are so well-washed that they barely fit onto the mattresses anymore. We help them assemble this makeshift ward.
And the whole time, I'm sanitizing my hands and changing my gloves, washing my hands before I use the bathroom and after I use the bathroom and before I take a drink. At some point, somebody comes around and offers us some dinner and the dinner is salad. And I'm like, “No, thank you. I do not want to eat raw food in the middle of a hospital in a pandemic.”
Paula’s selfie in the laundry room. Multitalented Paula is a neuroscientist, science communicator, musician and open water swimmer.
The next time I'm in the hospital I'm in the laundry room, which is where I'm supposed to spend most of my time. I can never find my way to this room, through the maze of underground tunnels that we're supposed to follow to get there. And even though it's on the third floor, it feels like it's in the basement. It's huge. It's filthy. There's even a leaking shower in the ladies room. It's dusty.
It's covered in boxes just scattered around everywhere with no organization because they've received so many donations of scrubs. And our job is to pair the scrubs according to size and stack them ready to be handed out to medical workers as they arrive and leave so they always have something clean to wear when they're moving from building to building or when they're headed home.
It's back-breaking, relentless work. Eight-hour shifts at all times of the day and night. The window is jammed open so sometimes it's freezing.
When I get home, I have a routine. I wash my hands even before I take off my mask and then I take off my clothes and hang them in a bag and leave them for at least a week before I can expose the folks at the laundromat to them. Then I get in the shower and I take as long and as hot of a shower as I can stand, and then I fall into a deep sleep no matter what time of day or night it is.
In New York, there's this thing that people do at 7:00 p.m. where they clap for the essential workers. They open their windows. They stand on their stoops. They set off air horns. I fucking hate the 7:00 p.m. clap because that's when I'm trying to get some sleep in between my shifts.
In the laundry room, too, all of the regular laundry workers are angry. I asked one of them why. She says, “Well, you're not here to help us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, our job is to wash and fold the scrubs that the hospital already has but you're only allowed to deal with the donations. You're not here to help us and you're just taking up space that we need. And they don't even wash those ones. They just throw them out after they're done because they're getting so many.”
This somehow just devastates me. I'm not helping. I'm just in the way. I'm contributing to a huge pile of medical waste. What am I doing here?
The next time I go to volunteer, I'm at a different hospital further uptown and I'm not folding and pairing the scrubs anymore. I'm handing them out as the medical workers arrive and leave. I'm positioned outside the ICU in one of the busiest parts of the hospital. Everyone there is having a bad day too. Everybody's tired, everybody's busy, everyone's losing patience but everyone's kind. They all say thank you and they all try and smile above their masks.
And I begin to realize the importance of finding the right color or the good fabric, because if I can just find somebody the ones with the pockets that they like, then I can make their day just a tiny bit better. And if I can't I can do my best smize over my mask and tell them I'm sorry and that I'll do better tomorrow.
Paula’s photo of a party thrown for medical workers outside the hospital.
And everyone's just so normal. They're riding packed into elevators because they don't have time to wait for the next one. And they're face timing with their friends and family as they walk down the corridor. And they're sitting in the break room eating salad. And they're goofing off underneath two masks and a face shield and gloves and booties and a gown.
Sometimes, sometimes when I hand somebody a pair of scrubs, my gloved hand touches their hand and I'm like, “Oh,” because that's the only human contact I've had.
I'm prepared to see patients come into the ICU in a really bad way and I am even prepared to see patients leaving with a white sheet over them even though I know what that means, but what I'm not prepared for is toward the end of my time there in May, they start to let a couple of visitors come in. Their faces as they leave, the way they hold on to each other, it's like they've lost hope and there's nothing I can do for them. I'm just sitting there in the corridor with my pile of scrubs eating my fucking salad and there's nothing I can do or say.
One day I'm sitting there as usual and I hear music playing over the PA, which is weird because I've literally never heard them use the PA for anything the whole time I've been there. But then it stops and I think it must have just been a glitch. Then about half an hour later, I hear the music again. This time it's playing from someone's cell phone. It's that song by the Black Eyed Peas, you know, “I got a feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night…”
And I look around to my right and I see it's got to be 20 medical workers coming down the corridor and they're singing and they're dancing and they're clapping. And they have a patient with them in a wheelchair who I find out has been in the hospital for over 30 days. He's being discharged. They play the music when they discharge a patient.
And they look at me and they want me to sing and dance and clap too, and so I do.
Story 2: Kiani Conley-Wilson
It was a chilly afternoon in late January of this year. It was my first day at Soul Fire Farm. I was so excited to finally be working for an organization that is committed to ending racism and I get to work on a farm. I love getting my hands in the dirt and just connecting with folks and talking to people. That's something that I could 100% see myself doing in this new position at Soul Fire Farm.
Kiani Conley-Wilson, at home on Soul Fire Farm. Kiani is a grower and organizer based in Troy, NY.
And we're gathering for orientation and I get to meet all of my co-workers, some that I know, some that are new. I'm really excited for this opportunity as last summer I got to spend a week on the farm. I always just had a big grin on my face the entire time and I just feel that love and compassion floating over me as I walk onto the land and start my first day at Soul Fire Farm.
Of course, a couple weeks after I start my job and get into the swing of things, the pandemic hits the United States. I am absolutely beside myself. I have no idea how I'm going to get supplies, get groceries for myself. I know that my closest family is about three hours away so I can't visit them or help them out with fear of spreading this disease. As more and more information is coming out, I'm wondering is this airborne? Is it transmitted otherwise? And there's all this information coming out that's contradictory so I just shut myself out.
I don't see friends or family or anyone, really, except for the grocery clerk for about a month because I'm too afraid to get any of my friends who are immunocompromised sick or just spread the disease and not know it.
As I'm reclusing myself more and more, I'm seeing less and less people. I'm really just going to my house or my garden and that's it. Nowhere in between. As a social person, that's really difficult for me because I love talking to people. So I'm getting more and more depressed and struggling. I'm eating ice cream for two out of the three meals - I use that term loosely - a day. I'm binge watching Futurama like it's nobody's business, going through the series at least a couple times before I'm like, “Hey, maybe something isn't right here.”
And I see my therapist pretty regularly so I'm like, “Let me talk to someone else.”
So I call up my old mentor and we decided to meet by his office outside overlooking the Hudson. He's probably the first person I've seen in a month so there's that going for me. I'm a little bit nervous.
So we get to talking and he's like, “Kiani, how are you doing?’
And I'm like, again, first person I've seen in a couple months, I can't let him know that I'm not doing okay. So I'm like, “I'm fine, really. Really. I'm great, fabulous. No problems here.”
He sees right through that. He's like, “Come on, Kiani. How are you really doing?”
And I'm like, “I'm really struggling. I don't know what to do here. There's so much going on and I just feel completely powerless and hopeless.”
He says, “I know, Kiani. Things are rough. They're rough for everyone, but we need you.”
What I hear is, “We need you to lead, act and just do anything to get us through this.”
And I'm like, “Yeah, that's fair, but I'm really tired so I don't want to do anything.”
So I go home with this nagging feeling like, “Hey, you should do something. You should do something.” And I'm like, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, come on. We get to wallow for one more day.”
And so I'm wallowing for one more day and there's this pulling sensation being like, “Hey, you really need to get out there.”
So I start the next morning just brainstorming what are things people are doing around me that I really find inspiring? And I know that we have the Solidarity Shares Program at Soul Fire where we're giving food to folks in need, but I feel like that's so big. Like what else are people doing?
People are volunteering at the food pantry. They're helping protect workers’ rights as more and more workers are being laid off or fired. And they're also helping protect the rights of both tenants who might be evicted or just having trouble with their landlords. And gender non‑conforming and trans folks and making sure that they have the rights that they deserve.
And I'm realizing, “Oh, a lot of these people are in DSA, and I'm sure not everyone in the branch knows so let me write a letter to folks.”
Currently the assistant program manager at Soul Fire Farm, Kiani is passionate about environmental justice, anti-racist, pro-feminist organizing, and the power of food across cultures, economies, and environments.
So I write a letter telling folks, “Hey, things are really difficult. They're even difficult for me, but we have authority over certain things. We have some sort of power. And there are folks just doing small things to make things better for everyone else. And the more things that we do, the more collective power that we have and the more big of a change that we can make.”
And so I'm like, “Don't give up hope. Just try something. Check in with folks and just make sure you're taking care of yourself.”
And after I write this letter I'm like, “Okay, what are things in my life that I have power over? What can I do?’
And I remember, oh, yeah. there's that Soul Fire in the City program that I'm supposed to be running. Essentially, that program is we build raised garden beds and/or container gardens for folks in need who have asked for it. So folks fill out a survey and we review it and we really prioritize families/folks who are low-income, single mothers and other folks who might have barriers whether it's affording supplies, getting soil, being able to transport supplies, whatever it is we want to help them.
So we get over 40 people applying to want a garden where last year we only made three beds. So it's a huge change and shift in how we're working this year.
So I'm like, “All right. We got all these people who need help. Let's get these supplies, make sure we got enough wood, soil, plants, seedlings and just get this going.”
In April, May we have about five gardens being built a week and we're in full swing. One family in particular stands out to me because they really taught me a lesson.
So it's late April. It's a couple of days for their build and I'm driving out to deliver some wood and plants to this family. As I'm driving, I'm like, “Okay, this is a new area of Albany,” which isn't really that unusual. I don't really hang out in Albany all that much. And I pull off of this really busy road into a more suburban area.
I'm like, “Okay. This area looks like a neighborhood that I really couldn't afford to live in as a kid, but it's cool.” There are kids running around and outside on their bikes. There's all these lawns but not a lot of gardens which I'm like, “Interesting. Okay.”
So I pull up and I let them know, “Hey, I'm here,” and one of them comes out and greets me.
He's like, “Hey. How's it going, Kiani. You can actually pull up into the driveway because we got these big pieces of wood that we need to bring out. Don't worry about bringing it all the way up the driveway.”
So I pull back, I back up into the driveway and we get to talking about just the garden, everything going on while we're unloading the wood from the truck.
And she's like, “Yeah, Kiani. We're super excited for this. We really couldn't do this without you because we have two kids. We both work full time and there's all this other stuff that's going on that we really don't have the time to sit down and figure out how to make a garden.”
So I'm like, “Oh, maybe I misunderstood a little bit.”
And we're unloading all this other stuff and she's telling me how excited she is about the garden.
Later on, her partner pops her head out and she's like, “Hey, Kiani. I'm just between calls for work but I just wanted to say thank you so much. We're so grateful for all the help that you're doing and we really feel honored to be a part of this program.”
I pull out and the kids wave to me and I wave back and I really feel grateful for this opportunity to learn about different aspects of barriers when it comes to gardening. And while this is all happening, there's all these protests happening in response to George Floyd's murder. Of course in Troy and Albany, we're having some as well.
So Troy 4 Black Lives calls for a rally for equality in Troy. I'm real excited but I'm also a little bit nervous because I can't really be outside in a giant crowd of people because I'm working with families all the time. And as the timeline diminishes towards the rally, I'm getting more and more anxious.
So Saturday before the rally, there's an action in Albany where folks are just once again protesting the unjust treatment of both George Floyd and local citizens, again, from the police. This particular event ends pretty poorly. The police end up shooting rubber bullets into the crowd to disperse them and then also throwing gas into this crowd. I'm really horrified.
The next day, I see a couple friends and I see this giant bruise on my friend's entire thigh and she's like, “Oh, yeah. I got that from the rubber bullet. Fucking sucks.” Like wow, that's horrific.
So a couple days later, a report comes out and it's this audio from the Albany Police Department. Essentially, it goes like this.
“There's some kids blocking this bridge. What should I do?”
Another person calls in, “Just run them over. They're just protesters. They don't matter. Their lives aren't important.”
I hear that audio and my jaw just drops, like wow! These police officers really don't care about us at all. And so my anxiety of course is going through the roof as more and more of this information is coming out, because my friends are going to be out there. And lots of folks that I know around town are going to be at this action.
So I'm thinking, “Okay. What can I do to make the situation better?” And I'm like, “Okay. I'm not going to be there but I can at least make sure the folks that I know that are going feel safe and secure at this rally, or at least as protected as they can.”
So I make this giant laundry list of things that folks can do before and after the rally. I'm like, “Okay, make sure you eat. Make sure you get a full night's rest to make sure you're energized. Make sure you pack some snacks, otherwise you're going to get hungry and you're not going to be able to go anywhere. And then when you get home, make sure you rest and sleep and eat something again.”
So I send that off to all my friends and they're like, “Yeah, this is awesome. This is great. Thank you so much.”
The day of the rally comes and I feel like a parent sending their kids off to their first day of big kids school and wave to them as they go by.
So I get in my truck and drive over to the other side of town on the east side where we're set up, a command center essentially where we got a couple monitors up and laptops. We got our headphones in listening to the police scanner and have a group chat with various folks just making sure that we're touching base and know what's going on.
So the rally is going fine and we realize that there are 11,000 people in the crowd. We see some pictures and we're like, “Whoa, this is insane.” The entirety of downtown is packed. You can really feel the energy even though we're on the other side of town of all this excitement and all this movement behind making things better in Troy.
So the day progresses and someone texts me, “Hey, is there someone on the roof with a sniper?”
And we're like, “What? We haven't heard anything about this.”
Then the police scanner goes off, “10-22, 10-22. Man on the rooftop of this bar. Not armed.”
We're like, “Okay, cool. Not armed.”
So we text everyone. We're like, “This dude's not armed. We're all good. Let's keep going.”
So we keep going and we're still feeling a little bit anxious, getting information here and there about things going on. Then all of a sudden we heard, “10-99, 10-99. Boogaloo Boys in Washington Park. They are armed. Repeat. Are armed.”
And we're like, “Holy shit!”
We make sure folks know, like, “Hey, there are these guys, Boogaloo Boys.” And we’re like, “Wait? What is a Boogaloo Boy?”
Someone Googles it and they're like, “Oh, it's white supremacists that wear, yeah, Hawaiian shirts. I read that right.”
We're like, “What? Why? What's going on with that? We love Hawaiian shirts. That's a whole look.”
So we let them know, “Hey, there's some Boogaloos out. They're apparently armed so just be careful.”
Then we hear a couple minutes later, “10-99. Boogaloo Boys, we got them. Bringing them out to you Rensselaer County.”
Like okay, they're going to be out at Rensselaer County jail. So they got them. That has been de-escalated.
The remainder of the rally is pretty—I don't want to say uneventful but there's nothing that exciting going on. There's not Boogaloo Boys with guns. And so we're like, “All right.”
By the time midnight rolls around, things are still happening but it seemed like the crowd had dispersed a bit and we go home.
And what these two stories tell me are they really remind me of mycelium. They remind me of this network of mushrooms that live underground that helps plants talk to each other, share nutrients when they need. It's almost like a network of mutual aid that's found in nature, and I find that really compelling and really relatable to what's happening now. We can either lean into our fears and anxieties and just get stuck or we can lean into hope, trust, love and compassion and learn something new.
So I feel very honored to be able to both uphold my values and help others, and I think that's something that we should all strive towards.