.
Jasmine Holloway knows it sounds odd. But March 2021, when she and the rest of America were enduring the 13th month of a brutal pandemic, may have been the best month of her life.
When the pandemic hit, Holloway was working at a day care center, taking night classes at the University of the District of Columbia, and raising her three kids.
Initially, the lockdown was a blessing: Suddenly her kids — ages 14, 5, and 3 — were at home where she could watch them more easily. Her 14-year-old, who had been arrested in a particularly rough period shortly before lockdown, found the time especially beneficial. “All the bad influences he was doing before, it stopped because the world stopped,” Jasmine recalls.