After working a 12-hour shift at Huntsville Hospital for Women and Children, Lauren Zito found hope scribbled on the sidewalk Thursday night.

As a registered nurse who assists mommies and their newborns at the hospital, Zito doesn’t really feel like she is on the frontlines of fighting COVID19. But the risk of bringing home the virus to her immunocompromised grandmother wears on her daily. As a precaution, she strips down in the garage as soon as she gets home and washes off the day in the guest bathroom downstairs before entering the main part of the house.

Anxiety, anger and fear of the unknown ran wild in Zito’s mind Thursday night until she stumbled upon a series of positive colorful, positive messages and pictures that trailed from the hospital’s entrance to the garage where hospital employees park.

If you are arriving, thank you for what you are doing, one message said.

If you are leaving, thank you for what you have done, said another.

Tough times don’t last. Tough teams do!

And Zito’s favorite: Your smile is more contagious than COVID19

Goosebumps rose on Zito’s arms as she admired the messages. She doesn’t know who did it, but she has a message for them.

“Honestly, for the ten minutes I spent walking and reading, I forgot about all my worries,” Zito said. “What an amazing thing for someone to do, to take the time out of their day to think of our staff during this difficult and emotional time. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reminding me to breathe.”

Zito, like many Alabamians, are trying to find moments of joy and peace during a pandemic. Some found comfort by helping total strangers. Others are finding solace by spreading joy to children. Many of them found happiness after enduring the tug of war between the grief over their pre-coronavirus life and the acceptance of a new normal.

If there’s one community that’s making sure the kids are alright, it’s Alabama’s teachers.

Daphne Elementary School teacher Melissa Spriggs wasn’t aware that March 12th would be the last time she would see most of her third-grade students in Baldwin County. On that day, a Thursday, her 23 students had just finished the last chapter in math. By the following Monday, only 11 students were in her class. By March 19, all of Alabama’s public schools were closed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Spriggs was hoping to see her kids again when classrooms were supposed to be open on April. Since Daphne Elementary ends at third grade, Spriggs’ current class will enter into a whole new building next school year.

Gov. Kay Ivey ordered all school facilities to remain closed on Thursday and for schools to finish the school year using “alternative methods of instruction”, such as online learning. Spriggs got choked up as she talked about how she would welcome her kids every school day with a high-five or a hug. Now those things are forbidden.

“To know that I won’t ever get to hug them again is insane,” Spriggs said.

Thanks to social media, Spriggs and another Daphne Elementary teacher, Autumn Zellner, found a remedy for their grief. They decided to organize a teacher parade. The trend of teachers hopping in their cars and riding around their students’ neighborhood with posters adorned with positive messages has tugged heart strings across the country. A few have been planned in Alabama.

So Spriggs and Zellner planned one for their school’s neighborhood.

On Monday, March 23, Daphne Elementary students waved at their teachers during the almost two-hour parade. To practice social distancing and safety, the students weren’t allowed to come near the teacher’s cars and the teachers stayed in their vehicles. But the students expressed how much they loved and missed their teachers with their signs.

Teachers made their own signs to let the students know that they are loved, missed and that they were going to be OK. Zellner kids needed to hear those words. She said they are also absorbing the anxieties of COVID19 as they hear the worry in their parents’ voices as they talk about money and the potential of their grandparents getting sick. Citizens over the age of 65 are more likely to suffer from severe symptoms if they get the virus.

Zellner believes the parade gave the kids peace of mind.

“They have their moms and dads, but they also have us,” Zellner said, “We love them. They are our babies. We wanted to let them know that we are still here, and everything is going to be OK.”

The students and teachers weren’t the only ones who benefitted from the parade. Spriggs said it was a positive influence on her daughter who rode with her during the parade.

“I told her, ‘We are doing this so we can make other people smile,’” Spriggs said. “So she kept saying ‘Where’s another kid? I want to make them smile.’ It grew my teacher heart and my momma heart to put kindness out and put so much love back.”

Although the kids won’t be back in a traditional classroom setting again, the parade was proof of something stronger: That they were more than just teachers, parents and students – that they were a family. And the family was going to get through this tough time, Zellner said.

“We feel so isolated at times. We can’t see our friends and we can’t see our students,” she said. “But this was a nice little reminder that our community is amazing. We have amazing parents. We have amazing students and it was neat to see how we can all come together - that we are not isolated.”

Another tightknit “family” is the food service industry.

A statewide ban prohibiting restaurants and bars from allowing customers to dine in has put a chokehold on Camille Henry’s revenue stream at Crestwood Coffee Company in Birmingham. Her staff of five usually gets about 30-35 hours a week each. Now they are barely getting 20.

“We are kind of like a community gathering space and a big part of our business is people coming in with their laptops to work, study or sit with family and friends to have a sandwich or a coffee,” Henry said. “Obviously, we have not been able to do that right now. So, this has definitely impacted our revenue.”

Despite the financial woes, Henry has created a relief fund on GoFundMe so she can feed the services workers who have fed the community for so long. She wants to raise $4,500, which will provide 300 free meals for Birmingham’s food service workers. She has raised more than $3,000 since she started the fund on March 17.

Bartenders, servers and other members of the food service industry can grab a free meal simply by coming to Crestwood coffee and telling the staff they are part of the food service industry.

Henry wasn’t expecting so much support when she created the GoFundMe, especially since many people outside of the service industry are also expecting financial insecurities during the outbreak. Henry expresses her love for others by making meals for them, and she thanked the donators who are allowing her to do that.

“Despite all the fear and uncertainty in our daily lives now, the overwhelming community response to this call for help has reminded me that there is still so much that is good and kind in the world,” Henry said. “The people who have come in for meals have given us far more than we’ve given them — solidarity, community, conversation and more thanks and praise than we deserve.”

“The best things, I think, to come out of all of this is the way that people are coming together to support their communities and their neighbors,” she said.

One of Kathryn Chew’s greatest joys in life is harnessing the time-traveling power of food. As a pasta and pastry chef at Bottega, a renowned Italian restaurant in Birmingham, Chew crafts dishes that remind people of their grandmother’s kitchen, the comforting meals their mother made after a bad day or their grandfather’s homemade chocolate chip cookies.

But Chew has been separated from that love – and many others - since COVID19 forced many businesses to close. Along with her culinary career, Chew is also a bartender and a musician known as Kat Delacruz. Chew said her life started to feel empty when she was furloughed from all three of her jobs.

But one thing that has buoyed her happiness is starting and managing a Facebook group called Quarantine Cuisine. The more than 3,000-member group is not only place where people can share their dishes, recipes and the successes – as well as failures – of making those meals. But it's also a space where people can get “mentored” by experienced cooks and get connected to local farmers during a time when some store shelves are still almost empty of produce and meats.

She started the Facebook group while staring at her pantry filled with random, non-perishable items like canned ravioli and tuna, ramen noodles and crackers. Chew and her partner called them their “rations.”

“I knew many of my fellow chef friends would soon be reaching into their wheelhouses of creativity to feed their families without the luxury of having farm-fresh, first-rate ingredients,” Chew said. “Then I imagined a world of five-star chefs living off Vienna sausages and hamburger helper and thought it would be fun to start a food group since we would only be able to communicate online.”

People from all over the world have joined a group whose description is “a page for the everyday Doomsday Chef.” The group has evolved into space to vent and heal through food. One minute a member will post about their “sous vide lamb shanks”. The next minute, it’s about “leftover hotdogs with hash browns.” The juxtaposition of the posts makes everyone laugh, Chew said.

Conversations between the chef “mentors” transform into peer counseling sessions as members adjust to a life where they must socially distance themselves from their friends.

“They are all finding hope and inspiration from each other and hearing their testimonies of how much support and joy they are getting from the group lifts me up so much,” Chew said. “I get to witness perfect strangers lifting each other up and sharing ideas. It brings tears to my eyes some days.”

The sense of community cultivated from Chew’s Facebook proves a theory she has known for a long time: Food – like love and hope - brings the world together.

“One thing everyone can agree on, no matter their social status, their demographic, or their political views, is that food is wonderful,” She said. “No political jargon can make you close your eyes and be transported to that trip you took abroad or that favorite childhood memory, but food can. It is universal. It is family.”

“And we are now all sitting at the same table.”