Covid Canceled

By Jessica Capriglione

March thirteenth of 2020 changed the way we lived forever. Students and teachers in every school district across the country have had to adapt to a new way of going on with everyday life. Here in Pinelands, students and staff have noted that they all miss the way things were before, but that Covid has helped them all find the beauty and fun in the most simple things.

Live audience games, plays, musicals, and even school days themselves have all been shut down due to the rising Covid numbers. These closures have affected students in ways that nobody before could ever even imagine. Even us students, three years ago, never could have imagined the mental drain that loss of simple things has caused. Patrick O’Brien, a senior year at Pinelands, explained how hard beginning his boy’s volleyball career was when they had to play in complete silence. To the volleyball players, the scraping of sneakers and smack of the volleyball was not enough. All of our student athletes here, who have played the majority of their seasons in complete silence, feel that the teams really could have gone that extra mile if Covid had not taken away our friends and families from our support chain.

Speaking of families, our students in the performing arts sector of the school have a different and more positive take on our “canceled” case. After getting shut down in the middle of our production of Mary Poppins, both Jeremy Wilczek and Aidan McCleary, who are student performers, thought their show careers were over. When they got word of Addams Family, like many others, they held their guards up high. As another factor of the show, I can speak from experience that we ALL had that raging fear burning through us, the idea that we may not make it to Addam’s Family. Then, we almost didn’t. We made it through many quarantines, filmings, and very few rehearsals in order to throw the show together. That’s why, when the school gave the go ahead for a very small audience, just us performers’ families, everybody saw it as a saving grace. After going on two years of nothing, two years of competitive seasons and working hard with the intent of no reward, we were given a chance. Aiden McCleary said that was one of the greatest feelings in the world even if, and I quote, “It was just our parents who used to laugh when we ate.”

Pinelands also lost a lot of clubs, activities, and trips due to Covid. The yearly trips out of the country, or the history club’s trips to DC took many hits. SBYS’ camps and clubs also had a decline in appearances and activities. Every single time something gets the go ahead, it gets taken away.