Uncovering moments of hope, joy in the difficult year that was 2020
I’m USA TODAY editor-in-chief Nicole Carroll, and that is The Backstory, insights into our largest tales of the week. If you’d wish to get The Backstory in your inbox each week, sign up here.
On Sunday, we instructed the story of Jo Marie Hernandez, a single mother of a 4-year-old, who was promoting her automotive to pay hire. “I only have $100 left to my name,” she stated. “We’re starving and will be out on the street soon.” By Tuesday, strangers had donated greater than $5,000 to assist her keep away from eviction.
And similar to that, out of a news story of despair got here hope.
Reporters Jessica Menton and Joseph Spector had been writing about the negotiations over coronavirus relief. Hernandez, who lives in Olean, New York, had misplaced her job at a fuel station in Randolph as a result of of the coronavirus pandemic and was relying on prolonged unemployment advantages.
“When I accepted to do the story, I did it in hopes a politician would read it and see the genuine struggle the American people are going through. Yet instead it’s the true heart and backbone of this country, the people, that heard my voice. It goes to show where the heart of our country lies,” Hernandez stated about the donations to a GoFundMe page set up for her by a stranger from South Carolina moved by her story.
As journalists, we’re on the entrance traces of historical past, and this year it has been dire. But we additionally get to witness kindness like that proven to Hernandez, hope from the “heart of our country,” as nicely.
Sports reporter Analis Bailey recounts the story of FedEx driver Aubrey Robinson, who drove by 11-year-old Eli Maines as he performed basketball on a rusty, bent hoop in his cellular house park outdoors West Harrison, Indiana. The ball barely match by way of the warped basket.
Eli did not appear to care. He performed joyfully.
Still, Robinson, who works six days per week, purchased him a brand new hoop and ball and drove 50 miles to secretly depart it for his household. She set it up subsequent to the previous hoop with a observe that stated it was from “just one of the FedEx drivers for the area.”
When Eli’s mother learn the observe, she knew who it was from, and he or she started to cry. So did Eli when he received house and noticed it.
“It taught me that there are not only bad people in the world,” Eli stated. “It taught me to do stuff for others, be nice for others.”
The story that introduced joy to reporter N’dea Yancey-Bragg concerned a 100-year-old British military veteran. Captain Sir Thomas Moore, 99 at the time, pledged to stroll 100 laps in his backyard earlier than his one hundredth birthday to elevate $1,250 (£1,000) for National Health Service workers and volunteers. His purpose was to stroll 10 laps a day with the assist of his walker.
He reached his fundraising purpose inside 24 hours and went on to boost near $44 million.
“When you think of who it is all for – all those brave and super doctors and nurses we have got,” he told the BBC. “I think they deserve every penny, and I hope we get some more for them, too.”
He was thanked (and knighted) by Queen Elizabeth II, was honored with a navy flyover and acquired greater than 150,000 playing cards from schoolchildren.
“In the face of the pandemic and the incredible suffering it has created, it’s easy to feel helpless,” Yancey-Bragg stated. “Captain Tom reminded me that any person can make a difference, even by doing something as simple as taking a walk.”
In Chicago, reporter Grace Hauck met Juanita Tennyson. The 23-year-old had been laid off from her fast-food job and determined to make use of her free time to assist others. She organized “love marches” and arrange sidewalk tables to offer free family items to Chicagoans in neighborhoods that had been hit particularly arduous by COVID-19, the financial fallout and the nation’s gun violence.
“Love can heal, and I think I’m proving that,” Tennyson told Hauck as she handed out tampons and canned beans in the metropolis’s South Shore neighborhood, throughout the road from an empty retail hall. “I’ve helped a lot of people. I’ve met a lot of people. Usually people say I came right on time.”
Supreme Court reporter Richard Wolf was taken with pandemic frontline health care workers who were also “Dreamers.”
“They had been undocumented youngsters once they arrived from Mexico and elsewhere, dwelling below the fixed risk of deportation,” Wolf said. “Yet right here they had been working as medical doctors, nurses, paramedics and bodily therapists, typically with out sufficient protecting tools. I had interviewed many DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients earlier than and after the Supreme Court heard the Trump administration’s problem to the program’s legality late in 2019.
“Now they were waiting for the justices’ decision – and while they waited, they were saving lives.”
Physical therapist Veronica Velasquez instructed Wolf in March, “This is just my calling.” She is a native of the Philippines who came to the U.S. when she was 11. “I knew this was something I wanted to do, pandemic or no pandemic.”
Three months later, the “Dreamers” gained a 5-4 determination from the Supreme Court, Wolf reported. And this month, a federal judge ordered the program fully restored, for previous and new candidates alike.
Editor Jay Cannon smiles at the story of the 103-year-old woman from Eaton, Massachusetts, who recovered from COVID-19 then celebrated with a Bud Light. Great-great grandmother Jennie Stejna is an avid bingo player and a “hardcore Boston sports fan.”
“I don’t know if it was her age, her demeanor or the fact that she celebrated beating COVID-19 in the same fashion I would celebrate making it to Friday afternoon, but Stejna is a rock star in true 2020 fashion,” Cannon said.
Not all joy came out of hardship. Some of our favorite stories came from moments of celebration, humanity, sweetness and awe.
Photojournalist Harrison Hill enjoyed reporting on the fan reaction to the World Series.
“Covering the Dodgers World Series drive-in watch party was the first time this year that I saw people come together for the love of baseball,” he said. “In the midst of a pandemic, hundreds of people were able to find comfort and family in the parking lot of Dodgers Stadium, even if every car was 10 feet away from each other.”
Life reporter Bryan Alexander was moved by a “Quarantine Diary” interview with Henry Winkler, and how the actor captured the way so many are feeling (including trying to “maintain some sort of being able to fit in a shirt.”)
“I think no matter who you are, no matter what we are doing in our lives before this started, no matter how old we are, eventually, we are all feeling exactly the same,” Winkler said to Life reporter Andrea Mandell. “You’re up for a moment. You are down for a moment. You make the mistake of watching the news and you crash.”
But when asked what he will do when this is all over, Winkler said without pause, “Hug my family.”
Reporter Ryan Miller reveled in the miracle of a giant panda start at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., proven stay on the zoo’s Giant Panda Cam.
“Of course the animal information that dominated 2020 was the “murder hornets” in Washington state, however the start of Xiao Qi Ji was a miracle – as the translation of his name implies – when his mom grew to become the oldest large panda to efficiently give start in the United States,” he said.
While interviewing people at the zoo, he met a couple from upstate New York who were among the panda superfans who drove down to Washington often to visit. “I can solely think about their joy once they received the information of the start,” he stated.
And finally, science writer Doyle Rice reminds us we are part of a much bigger picture.
“With a lot dangerous information in 2020, I took comfort in this story I wrote back in June,” he said. “One a few new examine that stated there may very well be over 30 clever civilizations scattered someplace all through our personal Milky Way galaxy. To me, tales about outer area have a tendency to offer wanted perspective on our troubles down right here on Earth.
“Specifically, this story gave me hope about our own species and planet, that we’re not alone after all, and that we’ll get through this and future ordeals.”
As for me, as a mother and an editor, tales of kindness, particularly towards youngsters, get to me.
This year, I received slightly teary when Dr. Anthony Fauci instructed our reporter that Santa was immune from the coronavirus. Children had been asking about Santa getting sick or spreading the virus, and Fauci needed them to know Santa was going to be OK.
“Santa is exempt from this because Santa, of all the good qualities, has a lot of good innate immunity,” Fauci told our reporter, without missing a beat, when asked about Santa’s health.
I’m undecided what moved me extra: that little youngsters had been frightened about Santa or that the nation’s main skilled on COVID-19 took time to reassure them.
As journalists, it is our job to deliver you the information of the day, irrespective of how powerful.
But it is also vital that we write about joy and inspiration, marvel and kindness.
A chilly beer. A stroll round a backyard. A new child cub. Rent cash from strangers.
This is information as nicely.
Backstory: With millions of Americans about to lose COVID-19 benefits, here is where relief stands
Nicole Carroll is the editor-in-chief of USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter here. Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free experience or electronic newspaper replica here.
