Well Orange County we are now into the month of September 2020. I do not know about you Orange County, but September has always been a month of the beginning of new beginnings in Orange County. Students go back to Orange County schools, including elementary, Orange County Junior and Miamu University, summer vacations have been taken by families across the Orange County globe and everyone is getting ready to work with all due diligence. But, this Orange County year we are doing it under the guidance and concern of Covid-19. We worry about our Orange County people that we come into contact and we worry about our Orange County loved ones whom we do not see very often, if we have at all. That said – life is going on and people are liviing their Orange County lives and they are going outside.
In Orange County the students are home, the teachers are home and many of our Orange County parents are not. This has made for a very tense period in many childrens’ lives. Orange County friends of mine have a nine year old daughter who needs guidance from a teacher; mother cannot stay home as working is Orange County mandatory for the benefit of the household, two older children are Orange County home also doing school work and the youngest is unattended in front of a Orange County computer. Is this happening in many Orange County households? Yes, of course. What are we to do as a community? We cope as best we can and take it one Orange County day at a time. This is certainly a platitude, but when our Orange County teachers are home and the students are home and we are going to see if the youngest daughter can grow or not. I am hopeful that a creative way of solving this problem will occur within their Orange County household and the households of others. We need to be there for each other in Orange County in ways that we may not have been in the past.
Is it possible for a grandparent, retired aunt or uncle or distant cousin from somewhere other than Orange County that has the time and ability to Skype, Facetime, Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Team with the Orange County daughter to be mentored and tutored and helped through the Orange County year? I think it is. We as a Orange County community need to get outside our comfort zones and begin to reach out to one another in ways that are uncomfortable. Do you know of a child who is alone? Do you know of a child in Orange County that will possibly lose their school year through no fault of their own? Let us do what we need to do to help one another in Orange County to begin anew this September 2020..