Our essential neighbours

During the pandemic, workers with essential jobs became recognized as heroes on the front lines

It is time to wind down The Record’s “Essential Neighbours” series as we enter recovery mode and more people head back to work.

We profiled many front line workers who let us tell their stories during one of the most difficult and uncertain times of their lives.

These workers did not sign up to be front-line heroes, but that is what they became.

We faced many hurdles as we sought health care workers, cashiers at grocery stores, and other front line workers to profile in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak.

It was a time when public health protocols were escalating by the day and facts about this new disease were still mostly unknown.

What made this especially challenging was that we were working remotely, at kitchen tables and makeshift workspaces in our own homes.

We couldn’t hit the streets to find people to interview. No one was out there.

We also wanted to follow public health advice to stay home as much as possible.

The other challenge was many of the front-line workers we wanted to hear from were overwhelmed, suddenly put in the face of a deadly virus while the rest of us hid away in our homes. It was reasonable that many people did not want to talk. They were trying to figure out their own lives.

Others told us they feared losing their jobs if they spoke up about their fears and working conditions.

We talked to nurses who expressed frustrations about heightened levels of stress and uncertainty in their work, but who did not want to go public with those anxieties.

But as the series developed we heard from workers on the front lines, as well as readers. They told us they appreciated reading stories about the neighbours they had rallied behind. They told us snippets of what their lives are like during the pandemic.

They reached out to give us ideas of where to look for our next profile.

There are still many essential workers we did not manage to profile in our time on this project, but not because they were any less important to our community — there were many heroes.