Collecting and sharing memories of COVID-19 by an Okotoks student will help stock the shelves of the Okotoks Food Bank.
Chelsea Taylor, a Grade 11 student at Foothills Composite, is launching her ebook, Impact, on May 1 with all of the proceeds going to the food bank.
“It’s a book of articles as I went around and interviewed a couple of people, whether it is about their job or their experience with COVID,” Taylor said.
Helping the community was the genesis for her writing the book.
“I was looking around Okotoks for volunteer things to do during COVID, I really wanted to help and give back,” Taylor said. “But it was really hard to find.”
She had heard many recommendations of the importance of documenting the pandemic for posterity. Her mother, Erika Taylor, who has a communications degree, gave some guidance.
Chelsea’s goal was to write something different than what is in mainstream and social media.
“It focuses on a person’s entire experience, from last year to now,” Taylor said. “’What have you learned? What are you doing moving forward?’”
She told of stories that pulled on her heartstrings.
“My friend, her mom got diagnosed with cancer right at the very beginning of 2020,” Taylor said. “Throughout this whole experience my friend has been completely isolated. She has been able to go to school but I haven’t been able to go to see her outside of school for a long-time because she was super, super-locked up because her mom was immune-compromised.”
Taylor’s piece tells of her friend’s experience with her mom and what that was like.
“What did you do when you felt lonely, and what helped you get through it,?” Taylor said. “She was someone I thought I knew, but there is so much you can’t see behind closed doors.”
The mother is now in remission and cancer-free, Taylor said.
There is also some humour in the ebook.
She tells of a cousin by marriage who had a baby during the pandemic.
“She has one little boy too and just to keep him entertained, they have done so many things,” she said. “They had a water-gun fight in their kitchen, they had movie night at 10 in the morning. It was funny to hear the things to entertain him because sometimes a house might not be very stimulated.”
She said she was moved when speaking to Drew Chipman, Foothills School Division assistant superintendent.
“He said he had a special soft spot for those kids where the school is their safe space and when the building is shut down and they are home all day in this high-pressure, high stress situation for the whole family,” Taylor said. “Hearing about that really got me.”
Taylor has been working on the ebook since January and included her own experience during the pandemic.
She was inspired to help the Okotoks Food Bank by the positive impact of the Okotoks Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints annual food drive had on the bank.
The ebook will be available at www.covidfoothills.com on May 1.
