The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
What’s your COVID-19 comfort level?
Mother-daughter duo creates business to help with social distancing
As communities prepare to reopen their schools in the fall, challenges could arise over personal preferences about what qualifies as the appropriate social distance.
But a mother-and-daughter duo, Liz and Amy Smith, have started a new, mission-driven business to help communities rise to the occasion. The pair of educators have built off their experience in classrooms to start My Covid Color — a system of colorcoded wristbands that allow people to share their comfort level with social interactions.
“We’ve been talking a lot about the worry that comes with the world reopening, especially through the lens of schools,” said Amy, a Temple University adjunct instructor and former Long Lots Elementary School educator. “As educators it’s always our priority to help keep children safe. It’s our No. 1 priority.”
The wristbands come in three colors: green, yellow and red. Each color signifies a person’ comfort level with social distancing, Amy said. A person with a red wristband shows they are asking for more than 6 feet of distancing from others, yellow requires the standard 6 feet, and someone with a green wristband means they are comfortable with less than 6 feet.
“I think this is so new to everyone that we struggle to have a language to communicate about it, particularly children,” said Liz, a Bedford Middle School educator and Amy’s mother.
As educators visuals are always important and helpful to children, she said. The simple, color-coded wristbands could advocate for children who may not feel comfortable speaking up.
“We were trying to think of a way for kids to have a language without having to have a difficult or embarrassing conversation with other people,” Liz said.
The wristbands, they said, can also be useful to friends, educators and family members.
“If I’m someone who’s in the red zone, it’s really good to know if you’re in the green zone because I may want to keep my distance from you,” said Liz, who lives in Norwalk. “It’s not only you being able to tell other people how you feel, but knowing how they are so you can gauge your reaction too.”
Amy, who lives in Philadelphia, said the traffic light color system is commonly used in schools from behavior charts to games children play at recess.
“It really is integrated so it wouldn’t take a lot of teaching for this to catch on,” she said. “That was really our goal. It didn’t involve remembering something, it just came right away to little ones.”
The new color-coded system could also be a benefit to teachers throughout the school day. Liz said the system of wristbands could help make teachers aware of an individual student’s needs, while alleviating pressure on younger students.
“If a child is stressed in the classroom they’re not learning, they’re not accessing anything I’m telling them because they don’t feel safe,” she said. “But if they’re aware that everyone around them is aware of their needs, it helps.”
Families can buy individual bands for $3.99 each or a set of three for $7.99 in either a single color or one of each at mycovidcolor.org.
The pair is also doing a buy-one, give-one program.
“For every band purchased, we’re going to be giving them to an underfunded school district,” Amy said. “COVID-19 has really disproportionately affected different communities and we want to make sure we’re giving this tool to as many people as we can.”
She said helping families navigate the many conversations surrounding COVID-19 through a simple system can help alleviate the pressure.
While the new colorcoded system is not intended to be a fix-all, they said, it could help everyone communicate better.
“The hope is that this becomes a language for our community and hopefully further than just our community,” Amy said.