Jackie Kraushaar had a big smile and a big "Happy Easter!" sign to share with those who watched the classic car runners leave the First Lutheran Church parking lot Saturday.
Lights glow brightly Friday night at Litchfield High School football field, which joined a statewide movement known as #BeTheLightMN.
The scoreboard at LHS football field salutes the class of 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Optimist Park joined the #BeTheLightMN movement by turning on its lights Friday night.
There was no football game Friday night, but the lights at Litchfield High School football field lit up the sky.
The same was true over at Optimist Park, where there was no baseball game, but the field was illuminated.
The scoreboards at both venues offered hints about the occasion, prominently displaying “2020” in time and score or statistics lines.
The lights will be turned on each Friday through Memorial Day weekend to support the class of 2020, as well as other students, staff and community as they deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to high school activities director Justin Brown said.
#BeTheLightMN was started by John Millea, a media specialist with the Minnesota State High School League. Since he first suggested it, schools throughout the state have joined the movement. The movement actually started March 24 at Dumas High School in Texas, according to Millea, and Dumas challenged other schools in the state to do the same. It has now spread nationwide.
Centennial High School in St. Paul was the first school in Minnesota to turn its lights on back on March 30. Millea tweeted about it and encouraged others to join in.
Some schools will keep the lights on for 20 minutes like Hutchinson and some schools will keep them on for an hour.
Litchfield got more creative with its efforts and kept the lights on for 20 minutes and 20 seconds in recognition of this year’s graduating class. Tartan High School, for example, will light theirs for 622 seconds, as they are part of the 622 school district. They will also light them at 8:20 p.m. – 20:20 military time, according to the Pioneer Press.
As of Monday, the number of schools participating is 200, and it’s growing by the day. All of it started on social media and is another example of how social media can bring these sort of things together so quickly.
“Social media is such a powerful tool to share the positives during an unprecedented time,” Brown said. “This was really a push by John Millea at the Minnesota State High School League and he has kept track of all of the schools who are participating. How the information has been shared across Minnesota and all over the country in a few days is incredible. It really shows the power of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.”
Dixie Johnson, a nurse for Meeker County Public Health’s Supporting Hands Nurse-Family Partnership program, describes the different activities she is going to do with Lindsay Kaizer and her eight month old daughter, Lainey Kramp.
Johnson checks Kramp’s head circumference to ensure she is healthy and growing.
Johnson and Kaizer are trying to have Kramp lay down straight, so that they can check her height.
Lainey Kramp is being weighed on a scale Johnson provided.
Kaizer watches her daughter, Kramp, enjoy herself with playing with a toy baby.
Dixie Johnson hopes to make a positive impact on first-time mothers and babies who might need that extra hand.
Johnson is a nurse for Meeker County Public Health’s Supporting Hands Nurse-Family Partnership program, a free source of support for eligible first-time mothers that has been around for more than 10 years. Supporting Hands nurses like Johnson seek to provide mothers the care they need to have a healthy pregnancy, a healthy baby, and be the best mother they can be.
“I love our program, because … we get to meet moms for 10 months,” Johnson said. “And we get to have a little time with them — one-on-one — and help them teach … first themselves, and then their little ones — on how to be healthier, how to make good choices, lower their stress levels. We do some readings with them to make sure that they’re on track for their age and their stage.”
The Supporting Hands program has served around 1,222 first-time mothers in 20 different counties such as McLeod, Kandiyohi, Renville, Douglas and others, since 2008, according to Meeker County Public Health.
Lindsay Kaizer of Litchfield birthed her first child, Lainey Kramp, eight months ago, and Johnson has been supporting baby and mother for nearly one year.
Kaizer has found Johnson’s support invaluable.
“I would say during the beginning, it was really helpful,” Kaizer said, “because I’m a first-time mom, the first time being pregnant, I had no idea what I was doing. So (Johnson) was just there for me to talk to and answer questions and give me any kind of information that I could possibly need.”
The services Johnson provides focus on ensuring babies are healthy and growing, she said. Johnson has been helping Kaizer with emotional support, relationship screening, and checking Lainey’s growth by looking at key measurements of weight, height and head circumference — and vitals. In addition, Johnson observes how Kaizer communicates with her daughter.
“If I see something that maybe needs a little boost,” Johnson said, “I can bring that information to her at other meetings.”
Following Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s order for businesses to use social distance and telecommunication — Johnson has since been communicating with Kaizer via FaceTime, a video-chat option between iPhones, for about a week, she said.“We want to be as compliant for the privacy of our clients as much as we can” Johnson said. “Now the office is working on other methods for telecommunication, such as Zoom.”
Having had her first child has been like a rollercoaster ride, Kaizer said, “But it’s been the best thing ever overall.”
“Through birth — through her growing — and all that fun stuff, she’s been so awesome,” she continued about the help she and Lainey have received from Johnson. “So I think one of my favorite parts, honestly, is the fact that they’re able to do like weight measurement type, all that kind of stuff, just to help me have peace of mind.”
Being a new member of the family, Lainey has added much light, joy and love in her parents’ lives, Kaizer said.
“It’s so awesome,” she said. “It’s nerve-wracking having someone totally dependent on me. But it’s so awesome watching her grow and seeing all the new things that she learns every day and it’s just so fun.”
Johnson said the Supporting Hands Nurse-Family Partnership program has shown positive outcomes in the progress of mothers and babies.
“There are lots of reasons why this program is a good fit for moms,” Johnson said. “We just reach out to moms that are more of the underserved. So we’re looking at a certain income level that might not have as much access to the care that they need because we’re wanting them to have a springboard of getting into a good home situation, a good health situation.”
Kaizer highly recommended the Supporting Hands program, especially for new mothers who might be eligible.
“Because they are just so much help,” she explained. “They will be there like (Johnson) said, and for somebody who maybe doesn’t have the family support around here or just doesn’t have family support. They are here to do that. They are here to help. The program is fantastic.”
Bayley Schluter
The Meeker County Museum holds historical treasures dating back to the earliest days of the county, even earlier in some cases.
Many of those items were collected and added to the museum years — decades even — after the events for which they became important symbols.
Museum executive director Bayley Schluter thinks that collecting history in the moment — like the coronavirus pandemic — might create an even more extensive catalogue of history. So, she’s soliciting donations of historical items from the pandemic.
“Many museums are trying to collect this history as it’s happening,” Schluter said. “Some (museums) have already started; some are still brainstorming how to do it. Collecting it as it happens is a unique opportunity.”
Schluter’s plan is that Meeker County residents would submit their pieces of history to the Litchfield Independent Review, with the possibility for publication there before being sent on to the museum for cataloguing.
But what kinds of things is Schluter interested in? What exactly would make a historical artifact?
Schluter encourages people to not overthink it.
“The sky’s the limit,” Schluter said. “Photos of a ‘CLOSED’ sign in the window of a business, empty streets, empty schools. If you keep a journal, or even if you don’t, just writing about how you’re feeling, what you’re doing now versus what you were doing a few months ago.
“I’m not looking for anything in particular. Just the theme, I guess, of coronavirus 2020.”
It is those kinds of things that can be found at the Meeker County Museum today. Old newspaper accounts or writings about the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1920 are catalogued at the museum, although most of the historic events involve “big weather events,” Schluter said.
Perhaps most noteworthy among those weather events was the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940, an expected early November blizzard that killed 49 people in Minnesota.
“With those event we have photographs, usually from newspapers (of) people in the homes, or plows in the ditch, or large mounds of snow on sidewalks,” Schluter said. “But those personal stories usually come months or years later. What I’d love to see, what I’m hoping, is we can coax those stories from people as they’re happening.
“It would be interesting to see, ‘how do people write when they’re in the middle of this experience, versus how they write after this major experience.’”
Many people have probably thought by now what a strange time we are living in, Schluter said, and maybe even about the stories that will be told years from now about the Great Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020.
In that context even accounts of everyday life can become historic.
“This is happening to everybody,” Schluter said. “It’s not often that you know that you’re living in this massive moment in history. This is something that we’ll get asked about from the next generation. You know, ‘You were quarantined in your homes for a month. What was that like?’
“We’re living in this moment in history, and I’d much rather this not be happening,” she said. “But it’s kind of exciting in a way, that we can document history.”
So, for all those amateur historians out there — or anyone who has something share about these days — submissions for the Meeker County Museum’s collecting history as it happens project, can be sent to the Independent Review at news@independentreview.net or by mail to Independent Review, 217 N. Sibley Ave., Litchfield, MN 55355.
