Category: Westport In Focus

We’ve lived in Westport for 17 years and I am an Occupational Therapist at a special needs school. With our school closed we are unable to provide direct hands-on therapy, but I have been providing remote support to parents of my students who are aged 3 to 20 and offering ideas for home activities. Because of my job I always feel I have incredible perspective on what is truly a hardship. The families I work with are juggling work with the demands of caring for a special-needs child, and during this time there is increased anxiety, as they have complex medical needs and are more vulnerable. I am just feeling grateful that my family is together and healthy. 

In my personal life, all four of us are home and working/doing school work. I unexpectedly have gotten to spend extra time with my oldest son, who was supposed to be studying abroad in London and with my younger son, who is a senior at Staples. In addition to working from home, I’m doing online fitness classes, going for runs and walks, making dinner with the family, reading, organizing my house, having Zoom calls with friends and family, playing games or watching shows with my two boys and husband. 

I am really trying to focus on all the kindness I am hearing about – and there is a lot of it. I feel that generally speaking everyone understands the severity of the situation and is taking the right steps to do what is right for the greater good. I’ve noticed that when I’m out walking, people are generally friendly – with waves and smiles – as there is this sense that we are all in this together. 

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Ken Bernhard is a name—and a face—recognizable around town. A principal in the local law firm Cohen & Wolfe, Bernhard has also dedicated his life to public service in a variety of ways. He represented Westport in the state’s General Assembly and also served as Westport’s 3^rd Selectman. Bernhard has been a board member for a number of local charities including the Aspetuck Land Trust, Westport Museum, Visiting Nurse Service & Hospice of Fairfield County and many more too numerous to count. 

As a board member and volunteer for Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation he’s raised seven guide dogs with his wife Alice.  His humanitarian efforts include helping to found the Syria Fund which aids refugees in Jordan and his shoe collection drive Soles4Souls gives thousands of shoes to kids worldwide. Bernhard is also a supporter of Tree of Life Orphanage in Haiti, which provides shelter, food, and education for more than two hundred children. Ken Bernhard is one of Westport’s all-around good guys. 

“We are by nature actively engaged people. Most every day we strive to be busy, productive, and helpful. For the past fifty years, we have pursued our personal and working endeavors with energy and enthusiasm. So, as the government required us to stay at home, sequestered from our normal lives, we were curious to see how we would manage this new reality. For three, almost four, weeks, we have remained at home venturing out only for short walks or brief excursions to the grocery store. 

Ken is a local attorney and Alice is the marketing and development director for a hospice organization. Ken’s workload has fallen off dramatically; however, he finds opportunities to stay busy, or not, as he prefers knowing he has tomorrow to do what needs to be done. Alice has remained busy with her work within the health field, but is catching up on a lot of reading. 

Westport remains a community of wonderment always able to meet and deal with challenges as they present themselves. The administration, staff, employees, and residents are all doing their parts and doing them well. It is a source of great pride to both of us to live here. Life is about dealing with challenges. They aren’t always good ones, but we will survive, hopefully better and stronger, even if things don’t return to what they were. 

Our greatest, almost singular, hope throughout this crisis is to find ways to reduce the suffering of everyone adversely affected by it. Each day we talk about how we might do our part to help both now and in the future.  If the community, small and large, needs something we can help with, we are ready, willing and able to volunteer. We have plans of our own to do what we can.” 

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I own a gym called CrossFit Westport which I closed proactively before the state mandated closings. I felt that my members and employees were at risk, and was concerned for everyone’s health and safety. Since the gym’s temporary closing, I have loaned out about 80% of my equipment to members for home use. My business has also gone virtual. We coach several group classes a day via Zoom, and check in with our members several times a week to answer questions, give personalized workouts, etc. My husband David is an investment portfolio manager, and saw the writing on the wall about two weeks before businesses closed and the lockdown was put into effect. He stopped going into the city about a month ago and has been working from home since then.  I remember sending my son back to school in California towards the end of January with much fear and trepidation. 

Both of my college-aged kids, Julia & Sam, are in on-line classes. When we aren’t working, we’re working out, cooking, reading, watching Netflix (we’ve been binge watching West Wing – if only President Bartlett was in charge now…), and I am knitting A LOT! 

I am still up at 6 am every day and fill my days with work and forward planning for my business. I am also the Producer for Staples Players, so I have spent quite a bit of time these past few weeks trying to help organize a fundraiser to help recoup the losses of our main stage show, Seussical, being cancelled. 

I would say, by and large, our community has done a good job of self-isolating, keeping the community informed, helping small businesses survive, and taking care of those who cannot get out of their homes to shop or do other errands. I feel that having lived in the City during 9/11 and experiencing the great financial crisis in 2008, has steeled us to a degree for the current crisis. Our kids have only vague memories of both, and they are doing their best to cope despite losing out on important milestones in their lives — my daughter, a musical theatre major, is missing her senior show, senior showcase and college graduation, while our son was really enjoying his first year in college, which ended all too abruptly. 

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Deej Webb has lived in Westport since 1967 and attended Saugatuck Elementary, Bedford Junior High and Staples High School. Self-proclaimed historic home lovers, he and his wife, Deborah, and two dogs, Zelda and Daisy, are riding out self-isolation in a rented home as they renovate their 19^th-century house on Long Lots Road.   

“I am retired from teaching and I am a docent / volunteer at The Fairfield Museum, The Westport Museum for History and Culture, The Pequot Library and The Sasquanaug Association and The Lockwood Matthews Mansion and serve on multiple Boards of non-profits. I miss my colleagues.  

I have just finished up the second edition of my book Boats Against The Current, the story of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s honeymoon here in Westport in the summer of 1920 and am working on the companion website to be launched in June–being useless at tech it has been a challenge learning to build a platform. My partner Robert Steven Williams and I were to premiere our documentary Gatsby in Connecticut at the Asbury Film Festival this past Saturday but that obviously didn’t happen. But we are happy to say we will be doing the Westport premiere at the Westport Library Thursday September 10, hopefully.  

Deborah works as a scientist in the Department of Immunology and Respiratory, at Boehringer Ingelheim and is considered an essential worker. They are working shifts then doing data analysis, meetings and training remotely. Deborah is reading much more on her current research projects and new technologies since they are rotating time in the lab and offices. She misses the daily interaction in the lab discussing science and troubleshooting experiments. Deborah, as a scientist, is thinking about new ways drugs currently on the market can be used for treating COVID. She is also confident that the great scientific community here in the USA and worldwide will come up with new testing, treatment and vaccinations for COVID19. 

Deborah has a horse, Mason, that she boards in Redding and is a member of the Fairfield Bridle Trails Association. She can often be found riding at Huntington State Park or Fairfield beach.  Deborah continues to ride 4 times a week and Mason is being taken care of by the owner of the barn. 

We are doing lots of FaceTime with family in UK who live in Birmingham, Nottingham and Southport and virtual happy hours with friends through Zoom. We’re supporting local businesses where our friends work by ordering meals. We also had 20 extra N95 masks that we gave to a friend whose wife is a nurse in New York City. We’re also spending a lot of time walking our dogs—so much so that they are probably going to go on strike! And we are binging on Netflix big time. 

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I am an ESL teacher at The Mercy Learning Center in Bridgeport. I am working from home and have recently been promoted to ‘principal’ of our homeschool situation. The teachers here in Westport are incredible, though, and we are so grateful to even have the ability and resources to homeschool. I miss my own ESL students and my work so much. I am very worried about my students right now, but I am so grateful to my boss that I can be at home right now with my kids. 

Homeschool is hard and I realize we take for granted the way we come and go to stores and restaurants. It’s been very hard for my kids not to have their sports. Having real routines and taking our pajamas off is really challenging especially since this “school principal” is very difficult and snacks way too much!  I also really miss seeing my parents and other people. That’s been a big adjustment–not seeing people, other adults, can feel isolating and a little scary 

I think it’s important to live one day at a time and that’s very hard for me because I am worrier and a single parent, but the chance to hit reset button hard at home and work closely with my kids is truly a blessing. We are trying to be creative (and patient!) by spending lot of time outside, doing projects, cooking and baking, and playing a lot of monopoly! And eating a ridiculous amount of snacks. I’m trying to keep us on a regular schedule that gets us into schoolwork and chores in the morning and leaves the afternoon to breathe and spend time outside. 

Our community is amazing, including this awesome project which we are so excited to participate in. We are so unique as a town and so lucky to live here and have our schools. Westport is truly a creative and artistic place to live. I have really wonderful neighbors and it feels really special to be around people who are so thoughtful and protective of each other. We are SO grateful for the doctors, nurses, police, fire department, and everyone out there on the front lines and that includes the awesome teachers here in Westport making homeschool happen! 

I believe it has made our community and, I think, my family stronger but I truly hope this situation ends soon. There’s been something about having time for long walks and science projects, actual time to build a boat or drop an egg off the roof without rushing for a game or practice or school, that feels like a gift and a massive reminder to live in the present. I hope we remember the time as a family unit and how we worked together. 

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