Students dealing with COVID-19 Essential workers fear for their safety

BY SHEHREEN KARIM

As government officials urge Americans to practice social distancing to stop the spread of coronavirus, some Pierce students find themselves risking their own health to stay afloat financially.

For Sabrina Corona, 23, working at Target during COVID-19 puts her boyfriend with asthma at risk because they both live together. However, the couple struggle to pay rent and live paycheck to paycheck.

“If I lose my job, I don’t know what I’ll do,” Corona said. “I don’t get help from the government and everything I have is what I worked for.”

Corona says how she would prefer not to work to ensure her boyfriend’s health but she has to make sure they pay rent to have a place to stay. She adds how she worries about losing her job because Target cut her hours down to 20 hours a week, which is barely enough to pay rent.

While fi nding themselves in a dilemma between working for fi nancial reasons and potentially harming their own health, Pierce students fi nd ways to protect themselves while working.

Andela Lopez, 20, describes her pre and post work routine she does to protect herself and her family. Before going to work at Target, Lopez takes a shower to protect her customers and takes her hand sanitizer and mask to work. Coming home from work, she immediately takes a hot shower as a way to keep herself safe from COVID-19.

“I can’t always be six feet apart from people when working since I’m always around customers so it’s scary if I do bring it home,” Lopez said. She explains how Target gives their employees gloves when handling items to protect employees and customers.

In the same way, Walmart employee and ASO Senator Jane Benga practices code “62100,” which makes employees stay six feet apart at all times, wash hands for 20 seconds and call in sick if they have a fever over 100 degrees.

Benga is an overnight stocker at Walmart and works five days a week from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. She adds how because she doesn’t drive, she has to take two busses to get to work and back.

She says that it is her family’s financial reasons that drive her to work hard everyday.

“Even though it’s COVID-19, we still have financial needs to take care of and bills to pay,”said Benga.

While being an ASO senator at Pierce and working full time at Walmart to support her family, Benga also balances five classes.

“It’s the grace of God on how I’m managing work and classes,” Benga said.

She credits her having all this motivation from making sure she’s not only physically healthy but mentally as well. Benga does this by having a motivational app on her phone and adds how everyday she listens to prayers and sermons to keep her spirit alive and to motivate her to keep going.

“You just have to tell the brain to be positive and think positive things and when you tell it negative things, you get drowned in depression,” Benga said.

Other students like Benga are also struggling to balance being a full time student and working full-time.

“With class and work, I am going through a hard time right now since I am the only one working in the family and we aren’t financially stable,” Lopez said.

To keep herself organized, Lopez uses a planner to schedule her time between work and her two classes to keep up with assignments.

While some Pierce Students are able to work, others struggle with losing their job and finding ways to be financially stable.

Paula Young, 20, worries about how she will pay 500 dollars for her six classes this semester after being laid off from 85 Bakery. Young adds how she doesn’t receive aid from FAFSA, explaining how she pays out of pocket for everything.

“The minute I can go back to work again I’ll pay it off, but it doesn’t seem likely anytime soon,” Young said.

Young said how managing six classes and being laid off from work recently was beginning to take a toll on her mental health because being outside and social was helping her with her on-going depression.However, she says how talking to friends everyday has helped have a positive attitude.

“Just keeping in contact with coworkers and friends has helped me so much,” Young said. “I realized I have 10 phone calls a day to keep me going.” skarim.roundupnews@gmail.com

In the same way, Jane Benga uses solidarity with other students as a way to keep her mental health in check.

“I tell myself that I got this and a lot of students are going through this and I’m not the only one so I have to keep the momentum going,” Benga said.

As COVID-19 spreads, grocery store workers were deemed as “essential workers” and seeing an increase in pay during these times.

However, some Pierce students who work at grocery stores explain how their job was always essential prior to COVID-19.

Benga said how in every minimum wage job she worked at, she never took her job lightly and worked hard for her family.

“Even before the virus, I never saw my job as small or non essential or something not important. People who think of grocery store workers as essential now are the ones who used to see them as not serious jobs before,” Benga said.