Random sample: Talked to three friends about their offspring at Carolina earlier this week. Two out of three tested positive.
All last weekend this town was on fire with tales of the spread of infection. The cluster announcements were no surprise. What happened after that wasn’t either. When the call to offramp was finally made, in all its confusing, “hey, we gave it a good try,” glory, it wasn’t hard to see that the blame was going to be thrown at the students.
I’m not here to litigate that, although it would be a pleasure and I reserve the right to the fury I feel right now when the time comes, but there are more pressing matters.
If you live here, you should understand this very important fact of life, something that literally comes with the territory: These are our kids.
This community exists because the university exists, we are bound to it by a compact with the people of North Carolina more than two centuries running — to have and to host. We all bear a collective responsibility for the care and safety of every single one of the young people who pass through this place whether they are brilliant or careless or both.
They pay us back in so many ways. They mentor and tutor in our schools and volunteer all over the community by the thousands. They make change here even more possible. It was when the students voted overwhelmingly to raise their fees that we got fare free transit. It was the students who had the back of local cafeteria workers when they went on strike and to this day organize in support of the workforce.
If you just think of our young friends only in terms of their impact on the economy and not as somehow integral to very soul of Chapel Hill, then you’re missing what it means to live in a college town and perhaps you’d do better somewhere less challenging to your kindness, patience and compassion.
Fundamentally, when the students are hurting, we are hurting and I really hope everyone around here who realizes that steps up and and lifts them up.
Right now, there’s an urgent need for funds to help with moving expenses, rent and utilities.
There’s a need for food of course and, knowing this community, I would think we can pull that together in amazing ways. Thankfully, networks are coming together to help the people in quarantine. God only knows how many there are right now.
We can and will rightly afix the blame for this mess, but right now, we’re in a pandemic and the young people who came to our town to learn and grow and better themselves just got their dreams trashed and their lives turned upside down.
Let’s focus on that.
Here’s a list of organizations helping and some people to follow for tips and ideas and thoughts and so on. I think it’s really important to support what the students themselves are organizing, to listen to their concerns and to do as much direct aid as possible. Do whatever you can, but please do something.
• Black Student Movement Mutual Aid
• UNC Commission on Campus Equality & Student Equity
• Chapel Hill/Carrboro Mothers Club Student Request Form
• Chapel Hill/ Carrboro Mothers Club Parents Sign Up Form
This thread has a lot of resources and a spreadsheet w/ contact info
A really thoughtful thread from journalist Sara Pequeño