Local students write about essential workers

Editor’s note: The Bainbridge Island Rotary Club has an internship program for high school students. The goal is to promote an interest in journalism by having them do research, conduct interviews and write a human interest article-this spring it was on an essential worker.

Roan Blacker, who advised the students for the Rotary, said they and their stories were recognized in the regional Rotary magazine in June. The topics and reporters are: “Need it now,” by junior Eileen Miller; “Make me well,” by junior Elise Bourmatnov; “Keep me safe,” by senior Cordelia Longo; and “Get me there,” by freshman Lily Curtis.

Need it now

By Eileen Miller

Jamie Walkowski has never lived far from a Town & Country Market.

Born on Bainbridge Island and raised in Gig Harbor, he has fond childhood memories of visiting Town & Country’s sister store, Central Market in Poulsbo.

In the 11 years since he started working at Town and Country, he has gone from an entry-level courtesy clerk in high school to assistant front end manager and head of Town & Country’s sanitation team. The former promotion happened in July 2019, but Walkowski’s additional responsibility of leading the maintenance and sanitation team came about more recently, when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Kitsap County in March of 2020.

Walkowski is one of several local essential workers being recognized by the Bainbridge Island Rotary Club’s Community Safety and Service Award Committee.

Walkowski views Town & Country as a community center for Bainbridge Islanders. The store’s employees have close friendships with some of their customers, born from years of interactions across the cash register, and he likes to joke that “our customers own the market as much as we do.”

The arrival of COVID, and the need for locals to shift their social habits, has threatened this sense of community, he said. The food retail industry has not suffered the same as other industries, but while profits remained high, Town & Country’s sense of community was threatened as trips outside the home became dangerous, and even interactions with friends carried deadly risks.

Daily customers were cut off from a market that used to be a part of their daily routine. Those who once made multiple trips a day to grab the ingredients they needed for each meal had to adjust their routine to making trips only a few times a week, abiding by planned-out lists and getting out quickly once they were finished, in place of the leisurely shops for breakfast, lunch and dinner they were accustomed to.

Walkowski recalled how early in the pandemic, with much uncertainty around how the virus spread and the safety of travel outside the home, customers would stand outside the store, uneasy about the risks of going to an indoor space. Town & Country staff, seeing the customers they had known for years, shopped in their place.

In order to make customers comfortable enough to return to the store, Town & Country had to rethink its sanitation procedures to ensure that the store was clean and safe to visit amid a pandemic. Walkowski and the sanitation team were integral to bringing back Town & Country’s sense of community.

Sanitation has always been a priority at Town & Country, but with the pandemic, cleaning protocols had to be revised. Although Town & Country had started preparing early, with the company outlining sanitation processes when the virus was still only in Asia, there was initially little information surrounding how to react to a virus, which made the first few weeks hectic.

From switching the frequency of washing down checkstands from every five customers to after every customer, to rules on wearing face masks, goggles and face shields becoming more standard over time, protocols were in constant development, forcing the market staff to change their habits multiple times.

To reassure customers about their practices, members of the sanitation team made sure to do their cleaning in front of the customers. With the help of a few others, in March Walkowski established the entire sanitation process.

Other challenges arose from the uncertainty. Staff concerned for their health retired or took personal leave, at one point leaving the store short 12 employees. New staff had to be hired– and quickly. From those difficulties arose good for the market.

Walkowski is proud of his team, including the many hired to fill the vacated positions, and believes the hard times will leave a positive impact on them, having already observed changes in them. He encourages them to find the good that came with the bad, such the new employees who joined Town & Country’s family after losing their previous jobs.

Walkowski sees the market’s new sanitation practices as another positive. “A lot of these practices we weren’t doing, or the way we lived, probably should have happened a long time ago, but we didn’t because nothing bad was happening so we were just complacent in how things were.”

He hopes that sanitation practices implemented in 2020 remain after the pandemic ends. “I really hope for our company and other companies that this is something that changes their normal practices for the future, even when COVID is gone, the practice of sanitation needs to keep going.”

Make me well

By Elise Bourmatnov

On its own, running a pharmacy is hectic. It takes strategic coordination to keep all the parts moving. Throw the COVID-19 pandemic into the mix, and the whole thing turns upside down.

Cue Marisa Cuffin, the Rx manager at the Bainbridge Rite Aid Pharmacy. She’s been working there since August, taking charge of the pharmacy and its three to four workers.

She describes a pharmacy like a duck swimming; from the top, it appears to glide smoothly, yet below the surface, the ducks’ feet ceaselessly flutter about. Even as she began telling her story, she shuffled around the pharmacy, multitasking with a series of scanning buzzes and computer clicks.

Cuffin arrived at the Bainbridge Rite Aid Pharmacy after the pandemic had set in, but there were still challenges in ensuring care. “We’ve all had to learn as we go and just adapt to what the company needs and what the patient needs, while trying to keep ourselves safe and understand that everyone is scared and frustrated.”

With patients unwilling to come into the store and pick up their medicine, the pharmacy began managing a curbside pickup. Yet, they suffered from a lack of workers.

“Low staff exacerbates everything,” she explained. Typically, there are three people working at the pharmacy. With one position empty, the team found itself down to two. One had to ricochet outside to run the new curbside pickup while the other worked the register. On those days, there would be no time for everyday functions, “filling hundreds of prescriptions a day, dealing with phone calls, doctor calls and everything else.”

The staff worried about navigating risky procedures, like when Cuffin had to break a safe distance from customers in the small immunization rooms. She could only hope the customer was taking precautions.

Thankfully, the Bainbridge community has been resilient through what COVID has thrown at it. Cuffin holds gratitude toward what the island has done to ensure safety for its fellow members.

“The thing that’s great about Bainbridge is that the vast majority of people take social distancing and wearing a mask very seriously.”

While people’s faces being covered made recognizing the people in the community more difficult, she has adapted to the new precautions while simultaneously providing medicine for vast numbers of Bainbridge Islanders.

With all the moving parts, Cuffin ensures that the pandemic “hasn’t impacted patient care throughout it.”

“There’s definitely a duty to maintain a sense of normalcy, at least in people being able to come in here and get their prescriptions, and be treated well.” To Cuffin, dependability and consistency are the name of the game. “You signed up when you’re in healthcare, to just be there for your patients no matter what.”

It would be easy to simply self-implode working in a normally hectic healthcare setting with the addition of the fear, caution and demand from COVID. Cuffin simply acknowledges, “There’s a given that like, OK, we’re going to get through it. We’re just going to do what we need to do.”

With vaccinations picking up pace, she notes that Rite Aid would definitely be a place for the community to receive shots, most likely in the same fashion as always, but perhaps with a drive-by option.

The pharmacy is still humming along, even as itself and the world are flipped on their heads. She notes that they are still offering other types of shots now as well.

“Even if you don’t fill prescriptions with us,” she said, “we can still be a resource.”

Keep me safe

By Cordelia Longo

In March of 2020, firefighter-paramedic Chris Lusk and his coworkers at the Bainbridge Fire Department were more tightly knit than ever. The team was used to putting out fires and treating the injured, but now, like everyone else, they had to adjust to COVID-19 pandemic life.

“When we started this (safety protocols at the fire station), it was pretty stressful,” Lusk says. “The first time I put on all the stuff… I’m sure you’ve seen it on TV, the get-up that you wear (personal protective equipment)… you’re like ‘Oh, wow, this is real.’ And after a little bit of time, you kind of get more used to it. You know, when you see a patient with a cough and a fever, at first it was pretty nerve-wracking… “

Lusk and his coworkers cannot take off their masks while at their job. They do that to keep the general population safe. “Station decontamination …, mask wearing, social distancing … things that people do in the community, we have to do” as well,” Lusk says.

Aside from the new safety protocols, things are the same.

“We show up, and we do our normal daily activities, which involves checking the equipment, making sure everything is ready to go,” Lusk says.

They have to look out for their community even when their own safety is not guaranteed.

“Normally we average around 3,000 9-1-1 calls a year,” he says. “In the beginning of COVID… people weren’t calling 9-1-1 as much.”

The fire department figured that was due to people’s fear of the unknown. “People didn’t want to go to the hospital and things like that. And now it’s kind of come back to normal levels.”

Lusk’s schedule hasn’t changed. The standard shift is still 48 hours, then they get four days off.

“Our work week is six days instead of seven, which is why I get confused on what day it is,” he laughs.

Lusk moved to Bainbridge when he was 6, graduated high school there, and then joined the fire department as a cadet. He got hired a little out of high school as a firefighter/EMT and then went to paramedic school. He left the fire department for a little while[to work as a flight paramedic in Florida.

“I chased my now-wife out there,” he said with a smile.

He also went to Haiti a few times as part of a trauma critical care team, the first time after a major earthquake.

“We basically just did direct patient care and then the second couple times…we were teaching Haitians… essentially, EMT class.”

Lusk said they tried to teach them western medical techniques, but it wasn’t realistic because they didn’t have the necessary equipment.

“They don’t really have like an ambulance infrastructure, a 9-1-1 system or anything like that,” he said.

Despite that, “They had the ability to really grasp concepts and do really well. So we had a lot of success.”

Lusk’s dedication to helping people continues today. As part of the COVID task force, he works on research and policy development.

He has to figure out “what we’re supposed to be doing based on national and state guidelines…I spend my time behind the scenes, which is the perfect spot to be.”

Fire Chief Hank Teran has known Lusk for 13 years.

“Heroism is not only demonstrated in single acts of bravery but in daily acts and commitment to doing the best job possible for every emergency response no matter the severity. Chris demonstrates such actions and commitment each and every day,” Teran said.

He added that Lusk is responsible for documentation of the Bainbridge Rotary AED (automated external defibrillator) Program throughout the community. In addition, he is a member of the Disaster Medical Assistance Team.

Lusk credits his wife and fellow firefighters at Station 22 for getting him through the pandemic.

“I’d say the biggest thing (is that the) guys and gals I work with, we kind of just support each other through it. That’s probably the best coping mechanism. You know, we’re kind of already a family… since we spend so much time together and do stressful things together.”

Lusk sees the impact that COVID has on Bainbridge. He and his team depend on the public doing what it’s supposed to. “We need the least number of COVID cases possible, cause there’s already all the other stuff going on—people don’t stop having heart attacks and strokes… So anything folks can do to keep the pandemic from getting any worse… is helpful.”

In his free time, Lusk likes to “play in the mountains,” which consists of mountain biking, climbing and snow sports.

Get me there

By Lily Curtis

The ferry is an everyday part of life for Bainbridge Islanders. Because of that, sometimes people underestimate the importance of those who work there.

Tiana Saragossa is a ferry worker who moved to BI from California 12 years ago because of the positive environment of the school district.

For two years Saragossa has worked with the Washington State Ferries and considers it her dream job. She loves the romance and benefits, and considers fellow ferry workers her family.

Despite the dream job label, Saragossa recalls the hardships of being a ferry worker, especially during this past year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You have to be prepared for everything,” she said.

Positions are completely random on the ferries so that workers have no idea what job they will be doing each day.

Saragossa has witnessed birth, death and even a bobcat incident during her two years there.

Challenges during COVID included 10-hour night shifts at the Coleman dock, sometimes alone, and being dangerously close to encounters with rioting in Seattle over the summer.

She also has to deal with people at customer service, sometimes all day in temperatures of 90 degrees where booths have no air conditioning.

She also has to be trusted with jobs such as lowering and lifting bridges at the docks. If they break, a replacement usually costs from $60,000 to $100,000 to fix. The job involves monitoring tides to make sure the bridge is in the right position.

She also has to manage the number of cars that enter the ferry so they can make room for as many as possible.

“You love your job,” she said. “It’s challenging but at the same time it’s wonderful.”