Leah Palmer, the Martha’s Vineyard public schools English Language Learning coordinator, has spent the past decade building cross-cultural channels of communication on the Island.
But when the pandemic hit back in March, schools, town halls, libraries, shelters, transportation services and almost every other public institution on the Vineyard had to close its doors within the span of days. Those bridges, built over the course of a decade, quickly began to crumble.
“I was at home, just beside myself, around how I am going to effectively communicate with families right now about the crisis,” Ms. Palmer recalled. “And everyone was in the same boat. Like, what are we going to do?”