My name is Connie Mendez.
I've been working with Henry Street since
2015, so I manage a team of people, and I'm a director of a program.
Our program is located literally in a
NYCHA development. The pandemic has definitely made me a little bit more
reactive and reactive to the constant changing of things.
My twin brother winds up contracting it, and it was super scary.
I was like, oh, my god, I'm just going to
have to go over there and see if he needs anything.
And I remember being in the cab not knowing what to expect.
Like, okay, I have gloves.
I have a mask.
I put my hair in a bun, in a tight, tight bun.
I put a shower cap on.
I must have looked crazy going over there.
So I was so afraid to open the door because my family is like, Connie, just
get him medicine, put it on the doorknob, and leave.
Like, you cannot afford to get this.
My brother couldn't get out of bed.
He was sleeping for two days at that point, and he couldn't even talk.
So at that moment, you think, oh my god, this is it.
You're going to, like, lose your twin brother.
And the cab ride back home was even
scarier because I cried, and I went to wipe my tear under my eye, and I'm like,
oh my god, this is the hand that I touched his forehead with.
I'm like, oh god, this is it. Now I have it.
I called him up, and I'm like, I gave him my last message.
Like, god forbid, I'm not going to hear from you ever again.
What I needed you to know before I let you go.
That night, my brother was able to start talking, and he called me.
And then after that, he hasn't been sick again.
I mean, he's doing amazing.
So, yeah, like, the first few weeks was triage mode.
I think the quarantine has definitely made
me question, I guess, my own ways of coping.
You don't ever think that, wow, I'm going
to be home and forced to kind of work 50, 60 hours.
So I have to make sure I'm doing my own
self temperature check because I need to be strong for the rest of the team.
And how do I handle their sort of transitions into remote work?
And how do I plan a program that is super community based?
I have such an amazing team.
They're so dedicated, literally, we never shut down throughout the pandemic.
We haven't stopped.
I'm from these developments.
So I'm born and raised in this neighborhood.
I've gone to all the schools in the neighborhood.
Lower East Side, it's a heartbeat.
And only people that kind of they're in it understand what I'm talking about, like,
just how powerful the people are and how much they open their arms to us.
What I realized after a year, I started working here
when I told my sister, I'm like, hey, I'm going to be working for Henry Street.
She's like, do you know that Henry Street
helped our mom get her first job after being a housewife and I'm like, really?
And she's like, yeah mom went to Henry
Street and they taught her how to be a housekeeper.
Like to know that my mom was impacted by Henry Street and my grandmother also
worked in the schools through Henry Street.
That's an amazing track record of being part of the solution to the struggles.