Coronavirus

As the year comes to a close and a new one begins we celebrate people who went above and beyond to make their communities a better place in 2020's darkest of days. These are but a few of the many who inspired us this year through their strength, kindness, resilience, and bravery. 

Local food pantries usually see the greatest need in the winter months, when those with seasonal jobs struggle to make ends meet, but because of the pandemic and job losses caused by the economic shutdown, they have been helping feed a record number of people all year. 

From a winter surge in house rentals to a spring shutdown of in-person showings and a subsequent boom in sales that continued through Christmas week, the pandemic led to an unprecedented year in the East End real estate business. 

By year's end, East Hampton Town's Human Services Department was on track to have provided around 57,300 meals, more than in the prior three years combined. It also makes thousands of wellness calls, coordinates with the Family Service League to provide free mental health counseling, provides virtual activities, and offers a support group via teleconference for those caring for a loved one, all in the service of keeping the town's senior citizens safe, nourished, and healthy. 

For many people, 2020 has been challenging, but as the chief of the East Hampton Ambulance Association, Lisa Charde has led a team of volunteers and professional paramedics in harrowing conditions. 

In the spring, when Stony Brook Southampton Hospital began to fill up with patients who were "all so sick at the same time with the same thing, that's when it really got hard . . . and everything we were doing felt like it wasn't helping," recalled Samantha Jiudice, an intensive care unit nurse there. "Now, when the patients come . . . we have a checklist. It's not easier, it just comes more comfortably because we've experienced it already."

Share the Harvest Farm in East Hampton is among the East End farms that have donated high-quality produce to food pantries and have raised awareness about food insecurity on the East End. In 2020, the farm expanded its outreach to include additional food pantries, for a total of 11 sites over the main growing season.

When the pandemic and the call to quarantine began in March, Carolyn Snyder and her family, the owners of Round Swamp Farm in East Hampton, sprang into action to provide homebound residents with homemade soups and groceries, including chickens, eggs, milk, and pantry staples.

When Covid-19 made safely practicing face-to-face medicine difficult, the Family Service League was able to pivot to telemedicine almost immediately — and its mission of caring for people's mental health was suddenly more important than ever, as the pandemic began to take a toll on the emotional well-being of many.

In a year marked as much by social upheaval and a nationwide reckoning over race as it was by unprecedented public health challenges, Willie Jenkins stands out not only for demanding change but for creating it.

Undaunted by quarantine-imposed isolation and a lack of supplies, Anne Kothari and Yuka Silvera spearheaded an effort to make personal protective equipment for hospital workers last winter and spring, ultimately donating hundreds of hand-sewn masks and caps.

Brett Surerus, a property manager who leads several nonprofit initiatives, and Alex Graham, a marketing adviser at Compass, lead the Shelter Island Action Alliance, which was quickly established in March to simultaneously feed those critical health care workers and support the island's restaurants.