The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Pledge brings neighborhood together — but at a distance
The idea came about because Jennifer Stamper was trying to make her family’s “new normal” feel a little bit more like their old one.
Now, just before 9 a.m. on school days she and her children join others on their street who come to the end of their driveways — no closer because of social-distancing guidelines — and together, hands over hearts, recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
That’s how 9-year-old son Zach and 7-year-old daughter Juliette would start the day if they were in the classroom, but schools were ordered closed March 12 to try to stop the spread of COVID-19. Now the siblings take turns holding the flag at the end of the driveway.
The kids usually are out on the porch at 8:45, to see who’s joining them that day. Most days there are at least a couple dozen people.
“My kids, when this first started, they were having trouble sleeping at night,” said Stamper, 49. “The whole purpose of this fleeting thought of mine was let’s just have something that we do every morning at 9 o’clock that’ll be normal. And it wasn’t in any way going to be a platform, nothing political, nothing else. It was just, we love our kids and we want them to have some sense of normal.”
When schools first closed last month, Stamper floated the Pledge proposal via text to neighbors who also were establishing new routines and looking for ways to cope.
“We’re in this together, we’re all here in unspoken support that we’re going to get through this,” Stamper said. “And this is OK. This is what we’re doing for now. This isn’t forever, this is what we’re doing right now, and it’s OK.”