"This crisis will end, but the trauma will be long-lasting."
Nancy Rand is a physical therapist. She’s lived in Lowry Hill since 1979.
My neighborhood did not get our daily paper for almost three weeks. After one week of calling the Strib and being told, “We have no way of contacting your carrier,’ and replying, ‘Yes you do. May I speak with your supervisor?” I relayed that our neighborhood would like the Strib to continue paying our carrier during this crisis.
I then sent an email to neighbors and asked them to forward it. They did. I started getting responses from people I didn’t know but who truly cared about our carrier. They offered financial support and an attorney offered legal help.
Because our carrier always left us a holiday greeting card, I had his address. I went to his house and learned he had indeed been taken away and sent to Texas. His family already had grocery help, so our group is helping them pay their rent. They cannot go to the bank and I felt like an undercover agent delivering cash. I have since learned he is back home and working at his other job. Someone else has taken over the paper route.
I am also providing groceries for a family in a suburb. They asked for jalapeño peppers. This octogenarian Norwegian-German American was not sure what they looked like and couldn’t even spell the word and had to ask my daughter for help.
She laughed and told a friend who knew a Danish newspaper reporter looking for a story about Minnesota grassroots volunteerism. The reporter called me and now there is a funny story about jalapeños in a Danish newspaper.
This crisis will end, but the trauma will be long-lasting. Those of us who do not have to worry about where we will sleep or eat can still help others. There are many ways to speak up for justice and I am proud of how our state has mobilized to insist the Constitution remains the law we must follow.
“Those of us who do not have to worry about where we will sleep or eat can still help others.”
