03/23/2020
-A message from OOI-
To our campus community,
Wow. If any of you have attended one of our trainings, or had the opportunity to stop by our office, you know that I am rarely speechless, and yet, these past few weeks have left me with little to say. If someone were to have told me in December that this is where we would be, that we were about to enter a new and difficult season such as this, I wouldn’t have believed them.
These recent events have left me feeling constantly anxious, sad, uncertain, angry, and frankly, a bit hopeless. Today I felt the need to reach out to you because it is important to me that all of you know, that if you’re feeling this way too, you are not alone. Especially here at UW, living in the heart of this outbreak, I know that you are all feeling the impacts of this crisis. It seems as though in the span of days, the vision that I had for this spring has vanished; replaced by a future that I cannot yet see.
As a campus community, there is much we have lost; I do not deny that, and I encourage you to continue to process these losses; to mourn the big things and the small things; to seek support and to actively work to unpack everything that has transpired, and to continue doing so as we inevitably are forced to pivot our lives as this situation develops.
However, I also encourage you to see this time in our history as an opportunity. This season is so much bigger than we can even fathom; this will be in history textbooks, it will be studied by generations to come. In the past few weeks I have seen the best in humanity. I have seen people come together in ways I never imagined possible. I have witnessed companies I once thought far removed from their consumer-base, tirelessly working to ensure their resources are accessible. I have seen small businesses strive to do right by their communities. I have watched as families go on walks every day; appreciating the simple fact of one another’s company. It is in this season, where I have begun to fully understand that there are beautiful things that can only be seen in the absence of light.
So in this time, though it may be easier to fall into hopelessness, I encourage you to undertake something much more challenging; I ask that you find ways to matter. I have quickly learned that this is an extraordinary time we are living in, one in which we cannot expect ordinary experiences. I am learning that we must actively seek joy; we must wake up each morning with the intention of discovering new ways to engage in our macro and micro communities. ASUW was built with the sole purpose of serving students; I truly believe that we have an opportunity, maybe a once-in-a-generation opportunity, to do something incredible as an organization, and I entreat you to be a part of this. Help us be leaders on our new “virtual campus”; help us empower others to find hope and to feel like they matter. This is our opportunity to level up, to serve students in new and innovative ways, and I am so incredibly excited to see how we are going to do it.
If you made it to the end of this, thank you; I promise I will step off this soapbox shortly! Above all else, I wanted to reach out to make sure you all knew that you are cared about, that you are valued and that now, more than ever, we will rely on you to be the student leaders that we know you are. Please remember that OOI is here to serve you all; whatever your needs. Never hesitate to reach out; if you need help connecting to new resources, if you have any questions about ways forward, or if you just want to talk; we are here and are more ready than ever to support you.
As Seattleites know better than anyone, it simply cannot rain forever. We will get through this; there is not a community of people on Earth I would rather weather this storm with.
Stay well, stay hopeful, and stay six feet away from others!
We’ve got this!
Sophie and Betty
OOI Team
