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I am a student at GablesCoral Gables Senior High. In November and December of 2020, I organized an essay contest for Coral Gables High students to describe how COVID-19 impacted them. I believe that the essays submitted are worthy of being included in a future edition of your newspaper. The essays are amazing.
Here’s the back story. In 2020, my life was substantially different from the year prior. Amid inertia, fear, violence and myriad unknowns, what can one do to make a positive difference? This is the question I asked myself while staring at my Google Classroom screen.
The pandemic moved school to online, at home. From Mar. 16 to the end of the school year, I woke up at around 10:30 a.m., signed into the school website so I would be counted as having attended school, did a bit of schoolwork, and then watched a stream of videos. No more Friday morning breakfast before school with my uncle.
Every day I would sink deeper and deeper into the chair in the living room. This black and white chair was a comfort spot, and the chair is well worn. I never liked the chair before online school, and now it is a favorite, safe place.
During the summer of 2020, I made homemade masks on a fussy, secondhand tabletop sewing machine. Hundreds of them. The prototypes were given to friends, then to nonprofits and first responders. I searched for the most colorful fabric possible and tried several different mask patterns. These masks were bright. Then, I started thinking I could sell these masks to earn money for something positive. Seriously raise some money.
I decided to organize an essay contest at my school to encourage my peers to write about their experiences with COVID-19. Money would be awarded to the top three entrants. File the essays at the museums and or the State of Florida archives. Create history. With generous help from advertising experts, businesspeople and friends, the contest was created.
The contest ran from Nov. 15 to Dec. 15, 2020. The contest received 114 entries. In addition to the essays, my peers submitted photographs, artwork, and handwritten poetry.
The contest was a multimedia creative outlet and event. I used an online judging platform, which donated much of its services for the contest. Students entered, judges received notification when judging opened, and the platform calculated the winners. I was concerned for much of the life of the contest that I would get maybe 25. About 60 percent of the entries were submitted 48 hours before the end of the contest. The judging platform said this was typical. It was nerve-wracking. It was a daily event to check the number of entries. Each entrant also received three community service hours, which is a requirement for graduation.
Essays have now been shared with the State of Florida, and a permanent historical record of COVID-19 exists. It has been very rewarding to conduct this contest, read the essays, correspond with entrants, and connect with the community throughout the various stages of this project. I am hopeful that you can share these essays with the community. Every essay has a “wow” moment in it.
Here are a few of my favorite excerpts from the entries and the judges. Other parts of the essays may resonate with others — which is why it is worthwhile to read all of the essays.
A great quote from this time is from David Burr Gerrard @DBGerrard, “Future historians will be asked which quarter of 2020 they specialize in.” These entries are from the fourth quarter of 2020.
Some of the essays’ highlights follow:
“My life, right now, consists of staring at a screen, staring at another screen, and another, and then, oh god, I don’t have any effort to break the cycle. Then the cycle repeats. I know other kids have been feeling the same. We get up, we see the moon leaving at the start of a new day, and before you know it, it’s back again. I’m thinking it was always this way.” — Leah Ulman
“I find powerlessness to be a perception created by the mind. If there’s anything I know now, a single person could move the world. In the final moments of George Floyd, he was more powerful and influential than his murderer. Floyd’s death moved the world even though the people in power didn’t acknowledge it, others spoke up for him, fought for him.
Consequently, I believed that even if I was the only one following COVID guidelines, I would be impacting the life of another.” — Sidney Eramil Mathurin
“Covid-19 did not wait long to invade my home, during the first week of quarantine I was the first one at my house who showed symptoms. First, a weird mark appeared on the inside of my wrist, it was very itchy and unexpected. Some days later I lost my smell and taste, it was very frustrating. On a regular night, my sister, grandfather, and I were watching a movie together, after the movie was over, we tried to sleep, it was the most horrible night I ever had. My body felt very strange, I was extremely cold although I was wearing a cotton sweater, I was hot on the outside, yet I was still shaking on the inside. My skin felt like fire, whenever a piece of garment touched my body it felt like hell as if I was sunburned.” — Sofia Pabon
“When I tested positive in late July, I was shocked — yet incredibly relieved and grateful — to be entirely asymptomatic.” — Alexandra Torres
“Literally, masks cause my glasses to fog, and figuratively because my fogged spectacles allow the colors to shine through much brighter than they did before.” — Sofia P. Bronstein
“I am a freshman at Gables, and I went to the school more times during middle school than
I have during my ninth grade year. I did not get a normal eighth grade and I have not gotten a normal ninth grade.” — Anabella Rodriguez
“I would rather watch a teenage witch run a postal service in a Scandinavian inspired country than watch the news.” — Sarah Whalen
“Tis a sad day for the poor medicine men, watching innumerous men in a line, ready to enter their afterlives. Children were out of school, tradesmen were out of business, towns turned into hells, with desperate masked men.’ — Tao Wang
“Living in a household of six, where my primary provider recently became unemployed, has been a very sudden and difficult adjustment for my siblings and me. Quickly, we had to get accustomed to the daily tension that was present in regards to how my mom would manage to pay bills or afford food for the week, as well as the daily rush of being quarantined with so many people under one small roof.” — Alma Martinez
“Imagine 10 months feeling like two days, cancelling both Thanksgiving and Christmas, not seeing your family for almost an entire month, staring at a computer screen for almost the entire day, or simply being expected to adjust to a life that is changing right in front of your eyes.” — DeeAnn Montero
“Further, this pandemic has had a detrimental effect on my mental health. Before everything took the wrong turn, I already suffered from depression and anxiety. So just try and imagine the pain it brings me to watch the news and only see that more people are dying, and nobody in the positions of power has done anything to fix this.” — Isa Velasquez
“Before the pandemic started, my last day of school was at my school softball game. I remember being the center outfielder and caught the two fly balls in a row, feeling accomplished while the rest of my team pushed through with a victory. The thought of it being my last day of the softball season and physical school year, in general, couldn’t be processed in my mind. Everyone laughed and said how we would be back in at least three weeks, having the idea of this virus blowing over in a short amount of time.” — Ariel Tickett
“We even had my 15th birthday party with masks, a real ‘quarantiñera’.” — Aniela Lopez
Judges and other comments
I was honored when John Allen, executive director of Coral Gables Museum, and Albert Sanchez, president and CEO of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce agreed to judge.
“I finished judging the essays! I found it very interesting to read what the kids had to say and have found myself thinking about their various points of view even when I’m not working on this project. There were such a variety of perspectives and experiences.” — Mary Ingram-Scatz, Previous Coral Gables High School PTSA member
“Reading these essays was like lighting a candle into the soul of a generation that has yet to define these unprecedented times.” — Jackie Kellogg, PTSA member
“As an Archivist for the State of Florida, most of my time is spent on legislative history. This is working with history as it happens. I am very privileged to have been a part of this and to read these accounts.” — Bethanie Y. Telesz, Archivist at the State of Florida Archives
The one-page contest information document indicated the following:
• Competition is open to any student enrolled at Coral Gables Senior High School, for the school year 2020-21.
• One entry per student.
• Students may submit an original unpublished essay of up to 500 words, describing how COVID-19 has impacted them.
• Entrants may add an optional photograph or piece of artwork depicting a location that they took during 2020, which supports the essay.
• The essay and photograph must be your own.
• Originality counts.
• Show your point of view.
• Besides the cash, submissions may be published in various social media, school, local, state and or other publications. You are documenting history. That’s why you should submit your creative work.
• The top three entries will each receive $200.
Entries were accepted from Nov. 15, 2020 through Dec. 15, 2020
Thank you for your time, and I would be happy to provide the essays and the emails to the students who entered. The Coral Gables Senior High School PTSA also was very much involved, and any acknowledgment of their involvement would be fantastic.
Thank you for your consideration,
Nicole Bohlmann
10th Grade Student, Coral Gables Senior High
