Class Note 2007
Hello, ’07s! We hope you have been staying safe (and sane)!
First, thank you to all of our wonderful frontline healthcare workers and those supporting them! So inspirational! There are many, but to highlight a few.
Matt Nolan is a pulmonary and critical care doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, and has been treating Covid patients there. He shares, “Fortunately, our town has had a very manageable spike in initial cases, which now appear plateaued, so nothing at all like the real heroes in New York City but we’re still seeing critically ill patients.” After he returns home from protecting his city, he has had to take measures to protect his family. He still shares the love though with air hugs! Big air hug from all of us to you!
Charlie Kircher is working in critical care, stroke care, and emergency medicine at the University of Cincinnati. He has been planning, writing protocols, and discussing how the hospital would activate alternative care spaces to deal with a bump in new cases. Outside of work, he says, “I’ve been hanging out with my favorite alum every day! Lisa (Melvin) Kircher and I have been ticking off home renovation projects now that my personal and work travel has been suspended. We would love to be in Vienna sans kids as we’d planned in May, but honestly, we’d also go for Derby at Kappa Delta Epsilon (and yes, that’s now a dated reference). For now, Loveland, Ohio, will do just fine!”
Mirelle Phillips created Frontline Strong Relief in New York City, an effort directly focused on alleviating stress for healthcare workers on the frontlines done in partnership with Mount Sinai Hospital and several others. We’re told she’s been working night and day to give people the relief they need. Truly inspirational!
Shala Burroughs is part of the HelpMainStreet.com team. It is a 100-percent volunteer effort based in New York City and Colorado, driving 100 percent of proceeds to local businesses across the United States and 15 other countries. HelpMainStreet aggregates existing gift card and donation links across about 50,000 local businesses to provide critical cash support during the Covid-19 crisis.
Allie (Fecych) Favazza shares that, “Quarantine has been a weird time of self-congratulations for my family since some of the insaner choices we made during normal times are paying off in isolation times. For example, we took over care for my half-sister and my husband’s niece when we got married, and those teens make for really great toddler-helpers and board game buddies! We hired an au pair to live with us when we had our third kid and daycare was too expensive, and she isn’t closed! And we got a massive chest freezer a few years ago to hold all the excess ice cream at the end of the season running an ice cream shop in the summer to keep me busy as a teacher, and now it’s holding a sizeable stash of bread and milk (and ice cream and hot dogs). We also invested in a very used 15-passenger van several years ago, and it was long enough to hold a banner showing all 100 candles for my husband’s grandfather’s 100th birthday parade last week! However, even with all the help, teaching middle schoolers remotely and having three kids under 5 has been challenging. If you’re chasing a wee one who flat out refuses to wear her diaper and clothes anymore but can’t stop herself from peeing on the floor, I feel for you. She’ll figure it out eventually, and you’ll clean a lot of pee. (I tell myself.)”
In other news, John Shellito left St. George’s in Arlington, Virginia, where he has been an associate rector for the past seven years, in order to become the rector at St. Barnabas in Annandale, Virginia! Congratulations, John!
Lastly, James Austin reports that her Pringle can collecting has resumed. She just can’t stop.
—Jaime Padgett, 1837 W. Patterson Ave, #109, Chicago, IL 60613; (574) 303-6944; dartmouth2007s@gmail.com
