Volunteers & workers step up 

One volunteer’s idea to provide breakfast to local medical staff taking care of covid-19 patients created a ripple effect in the local community, with other volunteers getting involved, fundraising exceeding expectations, and discounts offered.   

Another volunteering organisation helped combat the isolation of lockdown by offering language tandem courses to the most vulnerable so they, in turn, could continue building skills and integrating. 

And while we were in lockdown in Luxembourg, there were Luxembourg-based non-profit workers and volunteers serving harder hit areas abroad, where running water isn’t always as readily available, not to mention these individuals were away from their family and support circles. Here’s one case in point.

And of course, none of us can forget about the supermarket staff putting themselves on the front line during every shift. Some supermarkets also announced special bonuses for their employees to show their gratitude.  

Companies also stepped up their game. Local cider house Ramborn, for example, decided to use its alcohol byproduct to create hand sanitiser, which it then distributed free of charge to communities and individuals in need. 

Getting creative 

Students were among those to get on board with creative, positive concepts in 2020. Among them were four youngsters who made it their goal to tour each commune in Luxembourg, and they recorded their experiences to boot, inspiring many of us to take new day trips right in our own unexplored backyards.   

Other students from St George’s International School provided an uplifting, pop-up radio series for Radio Ara in an attempt to bring a smile to listeners’ faces. 

Others took on the long lockdown hours to start new creative projects in a variety of ways. 

During the first few weeks of confinement, singer-songwriter Daniel Balthasar found inspiration in a huge cardboard box where he hunkered down to write one song per day over the course of 10 days about how the lockdown was affecting him, his family and his relationships. He says the songs on the resulting album, “The long lost art of getting lost”, gave him purpose and helped him to stay sane in an unprecedented situation.

Martino Martucci got creative with baking, as he finally had time to get serious about sourdough--offering freshly baked loaves free of charge to neighbours at the start, eventually leading to his setting up a platform to launch a business. And poet and teacher James Leader says the lockdown resulted in a fruitful stint of poetry writing, with his creating the equivalent of “30 years’ output in three months”.