The past year has been one like no other. With a pandemic in full swing, people everywhere around the globe or forced to alter their lives. From masks and social distancing, to remote working and learning, people have forged forward and finish the year they will likely never forget. Natick, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, saw a lot of good deeds done by a lot of good people this year.

Let’s take a look back at some of the stories we covered in 2020:

NHS student creates Covid website

NHS sophomore Ella O’Connor created a website and Instagram account—Redhawk Memories—dedicated to memorializing those lost to the coronavirus or from something else during the pandemic. 

O’Connor said the idea came to her during one of her early remote learning courses

“During one of our very first online English classes, my classmates and I were discussing some of our many concernsabout schools being closed. My teacher shared with us that students’ families won’t be able to hold funerals if they lose a loved one during the pandemic, and I was completely shocked! 

“In all the time I’d spent thinking about the virus and the many ways it was going to affect our world, it had not yet occurred to me that social distancing would disrupt the grieving process. I immediately knew that I wanted to do something to help those people in our community who might end up experiencing loss and pain in isolation,” she said.

 

Love 01760     

The Natick Center Cultural District (NCCD) is available to support the community, in every way they can. They miss seeing folks at events, but cherish the memories they have and hope to come together soon.

LOVE 01760! Connect While Apart is a program that brings community members together despite the physical distancing. This project was a chance to put your love on paper and work together, while we are physically apart.

Everyone was invited to join Natick Center Cultural District, Spark Kindness, local artists, businesses and organizations – to create a piece for a community-wide art project – LOVE 01760! 

These individual pieces were brought together to form one giant installation (think Tunnel of Love) to be displayed at a public event at a date TBD. This project is for everyone and a symbol of our connectedness our resilience, and our unstoppable community spirit!

Girl Scout girls gold

 

Emily Arthur saw a need and found a way to fill it.

The Natick High School junior is a Girl Scout who is a volunteer at the Maryann Morse Health Care Center’s memory impaired floor for the last two summers. In charge of running the residents’ fitness classes, she noticed there wasn’t a lot of participation except when music was involved. 

There, she found the need. To fill it, she created a chair dance exercise class so that residence could be safe, but active. 

Arthur, who has been a part of Girl Scout Troop 72293 since first grade, said she wanted to use her lifelong love of dancing to help the residents. 

Riding for a cause

 

Sam Gloyd, a van driver for Family Promise Metrowest and resident of Natick, began a cross-country cycling trip on June 11, to learn more about challenges facing our country and to bring awareness to the issue of family homelessness. He started in Massachusetts and will be ending somewhere along the West Coast—wherever the road leads him!

 Sam has been an avid cyclist since he made his first cross-country ride with a group of young men after college. On this trip, Sam will travel solo, camping out along the way. He plans to visit several of the 200+ Family Promise affiliates operating across the United States to learn about the families they serve and the various challenges faced in different regions of the country.

“This trip is really something of a quest for me,” Sam said. “In part, I’m hoping to reconnect with family in Indiana and will be visiting with a retired minister in Michigan, who played a particularly inspirational role in my life.” 

But beyond reconnecting with family and friends, Sam was looking to meet and engage with people he doesn’t know, both through daily interactions along his route and through the connections he makes as he visits other affiliates in the Family Promise network. 

“There are so many things tearing our country apart right now,” Sam said. “I see this trip as a great opportunity to meet people, engage in conversations around what separates us as humans, contemplate what role I might be playing in that, and to report on what I discover.”

Dignity matters

 

Kate Sanetra-Butler had an unexpected request from a home ess woman in Boston in 2016: a spare tampon.

According to Liz Henderson, Natick chapter coleader of Dignity Matters, “The unexpected request started Sanetra-Butler uncovering a desperate need among homeless women and girls for sanitary products and underwear. Ultimately, she established Dignity Matters to meet that need.”

Henderson said Sanetra-Butler started small, with local donation drives and running the organization in her basement. 

“But it quickly evolved into Dignity Matters, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that collects, purchases and supplies thousands of feminine hygiene products, bras and underwear to disadvantaged women and girls each month.

The organization partners with food pantries, public schools, homeless shelters, domestic violence centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCA’s and medical clinics,” she explained.

Bringing smiles in a pandemic

Adapting to a global pandemic doesn’t mean restricting summer fun. The folks at the Natick Recreation And Parks Department found a way to keep some joy in the lives of some Natick residents.

 

One of its program — Skyline – has been around for decades, according to Karen Partanen, Director, Natick Recreation And Parks Department. Melissa Carter, who has been with the department for 19 years and started out as a volunteer when she was in high school, is the adaptive program coordinator and runs the Skyline program

“It is adaptive programming for individuals with special needs. They participate to gain independence as well as work on social skills or fundamentals of a skill. The programming has been running for decades and has evolved over time but is really popular with our teens and adults,” she said.