By Terra Avilla
The last month has been somewhat turbulent. Cancellations and closings. Restrictions and ordinances.
I don’t like this either guys. I don’t like not being able to hug my friends. I don’t like not being able to worship surrounded by my church family and I miss walking the halls of the high school seeing the students.
But I can tell you this – when we come out on the other side of this, (and I promise you we will) we are going to look at how we acted as a community and we are going to be very proud of ourselves.
Our sweet town is doing what it always does. It sticks together. It rises. It refuses to quit and focuses on what can be done to help and not on what is not going according to plan.
The hashtag sweeping the internet now is #coronakindess, and while I don’t quite know if I am a superfan of moniker, I am a superfan of the bouts of kindness I am seeing. I see kindness and love and thoughtfulness and community.
Want a very small glimpse into the magic that is happening in Lassen County?
Card games and board games are sold out. Everywhere, you guys, family games and puzzles are gone!
This means that families are taking this time at home to reconnect, put down their phones and play with each other.
Church being cancelled is upsetting, however there is one benefit – individuals who may not have showed up to a church service due to intimidation of going somewhere new or because of time constraints can now hear the gospel from their living room.
Accessibility for all. Hopefully this will translate in to them showing up when the world resumes.
Take a walk around the town. Ranch park is alive with our community. I have never seen so many families walking together. Spending family time with their children. Waving to their neighbors from afar, checking in on each other.
And what about our local stores? I think we can all agree they are the true MVPS. Staff members are working overtime to stock shelves and check out customers. Dollar General, Safeway, adapting their hours to serve our senior citizens. IGA going above and beyond to protect us while maintaining their mission to be #hometownproud.
Everyone pitching in to make sure that our most vulnerable are not too intimidated to go shopping for their essentials. It’s beautiful. It’s powerful. It’s Lassen County.
Did you all know that every night at 8pm our neighbors are uniting and howling for a minute or two outside. Seriously if you can remember- step outside tonight at 8pm and listen. Neighbors howling for camaraderie and unity. It’s comical and heartwarming.
Other neighbors are placing hearts and bears in their windows to allow neighborhood children a fun scavenger-like hunt within our streets. A small gesture of kindness with big results.
We have private citizens hand making masks to donate to medical personnel, store employees and the elderly. We have Greg Wallace volunteering to do special banners for our high school seniors whose final year was cut short and we have gracious people donating money and funds to make it happen.
We have teachers “Zooming” and checking on their students, a community of people making sure our school aged children are fed and a parade of lights and sirens thanking our doctors and nurses.
We have businesses adapting to serve our needs, and we have a community that is trying our hardest to show local help to our local businesses to stay afloat in this time.
Because in Lassen county we know it’s not just a book store – it’s our town’s bookstore that needs our help. It’s the Teeters and Arlin Billington and Roger Cox and Penny Artz and the Urritias and Eric Skeans.
It’s the people we love and take care of us and it’s the people we are going to take care of.
Lassen County, I am so proud to live here. This list could go on and on.
We continually prove that we as a county are so much more than what happens to us, we are united by what we have within us.
We continually demonstrate a sense of family and connection that has nothing to do with blood relationships. We are Lassen County and we are going to get through this together, and we as a community will continue to be why I love the place we live.
