When I first started preparing for COVID Stories, I went online, to LinkedIn, and started searching hashtags, looking for people who had been laid off due to COVID. This was back in June and July of 2020, and it wasn’t hard.

Every time I searched terms like laid off, unemployed, or furloughed, I found the site was full of people sharing their stories. Emotionally raw posts about being laid off had hundreds of reactions and empathetic comments.

COVID-19 has affected the way all of us work, and for many people the dominant experience of COVID-19 has been months spent working from home. Work from home wasn’t a widely available option before COVID, so for most this is their first long term experience working from home.

Working from home is hard, and it can have serious consequences for someone’s mental health. But working from home existed before COVID-19. For some it was a long dreamt of ideal work environment, but for others working from home was isolating, with limited opportunities for long term growth and career advancement. And that’s especially true if you’re someone who already faces systemic challenges pursuing those goals in the first place.

Starting a business, any business, is hard work. It takes time, skill, more than a little bit of luck, and usually the business you end up with isn’t exactly the one you dreamt of from the beginning. Meet Marissa, she’s the CEO of Rafi Nova, an ethically minded, fair trade fashion company that purchases handmade textiles from women in rural Vietnam, and turns them into fashionable and family-friendly travel accessories.

It’s wild to think that fall is here already, and school is back in session. I always loved back to school season, with fresh pencils and new classes, but this year of course brings more challenges than ever.

With COVID-19 still a major threat, school districts have adopted a wide variety of policies to prevent any spread of the virus among their students. In some districts this includes remote learning, in others in-person classes, and still other districts have opted for complex hybrid systems.

Brian has spent much of his professional life at sea, doing a job he loves, helping people explore the most remote corners of our world. When the pandemic first hit, Brian was working on a routine cruise from Argentina to Antartica, until borders began to shut down, and ships out of port found themselves stranded at sea.

Brian found himself stuck on board his cruise ship, along with 200 passengers and 200 fellow crew members, part of a crisis that rapidly developed in seaports around the world.

Millions of people have filed for unemployment since the COVID crisis began, but for many this isn't the first time they lost their job. The past 20 years have seen numerous mass lay offs, from the 2001 tech bubble to the 2007 financial crisis, right up until the 2019 auto industry crisis. And for some people, when the COVID crisis first hit, they were already unemployed, and found themselves in a new job market seemingly overnight. Meet Malini, she lost her job in 2007, and again in 2019. And when COVID first hit, she was just coming back from a year travelling the world, ready to look for a new job.

Hamilton stormed back into the pop culture scene this summer, reminding all of us how valuable the arts are, especially in dark times. Theaters and concert halls were some of the first businesses to be closed as the COVID-19 pandemic spread through New York. So for this episode, I wanted to feature the voice of a Broadway actor, who is coping unemployment and staying creative while stuck at home.

It takes guts to run for office, and just as much courage to work for a political candidate. In this episode, we meet someone who dedicated themself to a candidate they still believe in, only to watch that candidate drop out after Super Tuesday, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was really breaking open.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis that impacts different communities differently. For the first episode, I chose to feature the story of someone working to create widespread change in their neighborhood and beyond. He told me about the impact COVID-19 is having on him, his family, and his community; and why he remains hopeful about the future.