Dear Fernwoodians,
The other day I saw a poignant letter from the archives of F. Scott Fitzgerald written in 1920 while he was quarantined in the south of France due to the Spanish Flu. He noted that the streets were empty, “Even the bars, as I told Hemmingway, but to that he punched me in the stomach, to which I asked if he had washed his hands. He hadn’t.” When the COVID-19 crisis first struck I was in Hemmingway’s camp, but like most of us I quickly moved to Fitzgerald’s camp. I don’t mean to make light of our current situation. Quite the contrary. What were facing is a huge social movement the likes of which we haven’t seen. Our technologically sophisticated society can track and communicate about a tiny virus at blinding speed, but at the same time COVID-19 continues to move day-by-day. Our umbilical attachment to social media has revealed that we can embrace fear and anger by fearmongering, or we can embrace creativity and kindness by caremongering.
At Fernwood NRG, we are doing our best to be the latter. We have reached out to multiple sources of funding—banks, credit unions, municipal, provincial and federal governments, and charitable foundations. Our aim is not just to shore up our organization, but to drive those resources into the community.
We want to be able to provide childcare and other family services in a time of extreme need. We want the tenants that live in our apartments to feel safe and secure to stay home. And we want the businesses in our neighbourhood to weather this storm and continue to be a vital part of our neighbourhood. Most of all, we want to do our part to help Fernwood to come together at this time and show that we are more than a collection of individuals, we are a community that cares about one another. So, if you are at home doing your best to social isolate and you need some inspiration, think about punching Hemmingway in the stomach on behalf of F. Scott Fitzgerald and when you do, don’t forget to wash your hands.
Michael Lancaster
Board Chair, Fernwood NRG
