Please consider donating the following items to any of our donation center. For us, the most convenient pick up location is Sherman 205. 

Pasta

Tomato sauce
Canned fruits
Can openers
Toothpaste
Deodorants
Body lotion
Bandages/first aid kit
Rubbing alcohol
Hydrogen Peroxide
Canned Meat (chicken, tuna, etc.) 
Jerky 
Gloves 

Clorox wipes

N95 Respiratory masks

All restaurants, bars, movie theaters and gyms in Maryland closed their doors at 5 p.m. on Mar. 17 according to Governor Larry Hogan’s unprecedented order in response to COVID-19. In the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s backyard, two restaurants frequented by the UMBC students, OCA Mocha and Atwater’s, were forced to make tough decisions about their next moves during the pandemic.

In the weeks before the order, OCA Mocha, the UMBC alum-owned community coffee shop, had been instituting new procedures for safety that employees were required to follow in response to COVID-19. Every hour after OCA Mocha opened, barista and shift lead Ashley Bonilla said she would disinfect everything from the counters to the seats to the registers. “Essentially, you have to sign an hourly sanitation log. I went ham on the sanitizer. I think it was a really good idea in a time like this,” she said. 

Not even 24 hours before the announcement of Hogan’s order, OCA Mocha had announced via Instagram that they would be remaining open to serve the Arbutus community. Roughly 18 hours later, the coffee shop was closed. 

Bonilla didn’t expect the quick turn of events. “We didn’t know it was going to happen, we just watched the situation slowly escalate. We just opened [in November of 2019] so it’s really stressful that this is happening now. This is when we need business,” Bonilla said.

As of now, OCA Mocha’s baristas will not be receiving paid time off (only stipended interns will continue to be paid), but Michael Berardi, general manager and co-founder of OCA Mocha, has noted that he encouraged employees to communicate with senior management about any financial concerns they might have. And, he adds, they are still having internal conversations about how to handle the changing situation. “Everything is changing by the hour,” he said.

Bonilla said that although she is not currently getting paid, she still feels supported by her managers. “My bosses are always listening to me. If I’ve ever had a concern they’ve directly addressed it within a day,” she said. “Our staff is really close and I know if I need something they’ll be there for me. I do have savings so I’ll be fine for at least a month, but after that, I might need to talk to them about financial help.”

Bonilla’s mother is a lunch lady in Montgomery County who has been volunteering to hand out lunches to students outside of school, and her father is a for-hire construction worker. Bonilla’s brother, who worked at a pizza shop, also lost his source of income. 

“I helped pay for half of the groceries out of my pocket [from] my tips. I’m hoping that the people who hired my dad continue to pay him,” Bonilla said. “A lot of us live paycheck to paycheck. My brother and I are really bummed out; we’re adults now, we have bills to pay. I have credit card debt to pay off,  [and] I use a good amount of my OCA Mocha paycheck to pay it off.”

Berardi says OCA Mocha is following the pandemic and the rate of infection diligently. “We are paying close attention to the news, what UMBC is doing and what the state is doing as a whole. We’re being overly cautious and preparing for whatever’s next,” he said.

While OCA Mocha closes its doors, other restaurants, like Atwater’s, are still offering phone and online ordering curbside pick-up and delivery using Uber Eats and Grubhub. 

Catey Minnis, brand manager at Atwater’s, has felt the impact of the rapid day-to-day pandemic changes. “Things have been changing so fast in a matter of a couple of hours. It’s been kind of a struggle trying to put out all these messages,” Minnis said. 

Atwater’s has five locations around the Baltimore-Catonsville area, as well as the “Big Kitchen” in Baltimore where many of their products are made and they grow vegetables on an urban farm. But when Minnis entered the Big Kitchen on Mar. 17, she noticed that the employees who usually fill the space were missing. “There’s only the department heads of bread, pastry and soup,” she said. Atwater’s restaurants have downsized to only the essential employees: managers, two-to-five servers and one kitchen staff member working.

Without the dine-in option, Minnis said that orders have “definitely” gone down, and delivery services take 30% of sales. “I think it’s a shared anxiety of everyone in the world, that shared panic. I went home, and the gravity of this was really settling in. It’s a little bit scary but employees are trying to make the best of it and the servers are happy to be there,” Minnis said. 

Minnis says that Ned Atwater, the owner of Atwater’s, is aiming to give people as many options as he can. “Ned has tried hard to give people the option to work or not work. He’s doing the best that he can to keep everyone paid, or helping them immediately file for unemployment so they don’t miss a paycheck,” she said.

Atwater’s has been utilizing Instagram to get momentum and keep their customers in the loop. Instagram has the best engagement, according to Minnis.

On March 16, Atwater’s posted on Instagram telling Larry Hogan that they wouldn’t be able to survive for long with the current business model and asked him to “immediately support emergency unemployment benefits to all hourly and salaried employees furloughed during this crisis, eliminate payroll tax and call for rent and loan abatement for employers and establishments impacted by the closure of the restaurant industry.” 

The post on Instagram quickly became Atwater’s most-liked photo as of date. 

Angie Law, retail operations manager at Atwater’s, had the idea to use social media as a call to action, after seeing another business in Chicago post something similar. “Some of the employees are immunocompromised or live with their grandparents. And we just couldn’t in good conscience continue to do business as usual even though we were busy and customers were coming out to support us,” she said. 

Law said she knew of many small business owners who were closing their doors, or were laying off their staff. “It was frustrating to watch with no word from Governor Hogan on an action plan to help people affected by this,” she said. “I was hoping that if we could write something and tag [Hogan] and could encourage others to do so, perhaps we could start a movement.”

After they posted, Law found that there was interest in starting a formal petition with Dave Seel, the founder of Blue Fork Marketing, and Martha Lucius, a restaurant strategist, on Change.org. Seel started a Facebook group called Baltimore Area Restaurant Industry Relief Group that now has 585 members. OCA Mocha is currently considering joining the group. The petition has over 5,900 signers, out of the 7,500 goal.

“We hope that we will gain enough momentum to be heard and make a positive impact for the small businesses and hospitality service workers,” Law said. “We want to see immediate relief plans and actions for every small business owner and restaurant industry worker in Baltimore City and Baltimore County. If we wait too long, most businesses won’t survive this pandemic.” 

In response, Minnis says that they have seen a swell of support from the community. “Based on what people have been commenting and reaching out with, people are extending as much support as they can. Even when it’s scary, our customers are reaching out and saying ‘we love Atwater’s and we can’t wait to have our next chicken salad sandwich,’” she said. “I’m pretty positive that Atwater’s will be okay at the end of this. Not everyone has the means to spend the extra money right now, [but if you can,] this is a great time to support your local businesses.”

While OCA Mocha is closed, Berardi says they are focusing on their online community. When speaking to the community, Berardi has one thing to say: “Just because we have to close our doors doesn’t mean we’re going anywhere, and we’ll be back as soon as possible.”

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, there is a growing concern for mental wellness along with physical wellness. The pandemic has caused uncertainty for both the faculty and the students at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which can lead to stress and anxiety.

Joshua Bush, a freshman computer science major, found the potential threat of the virus to be particularly stressful and grew more anxious as he learned more about the disease.

“I try not to spend my life living in constant fear, though I do have a healthy respect for dangerous things such as a new virus that is spreading at an increasingly rapid rate,” Bush said. “Each of my lectures has about 150 students sitting shoulder to shoulder in a single room for over an hour. Though it was unlikely that anyone at UMBC had coronavirus, if somebody did, that could have been a disaster.”

Like the majority of freshmen at UMBC, Bush has on-campus housing and was required to leave while the campus functions remotely. Bush went to his rural home where he was considerably more isolated than in a residence hall.

“For this reason, the decision to switch to online education from home provided me a lot of peace of mind,” Bush said. “I feel safer at my home during this pandemic, which allows me to concentrate more on my schoolwork. As an added bonus, I have gotten to reconnect with my family and spend some time with my two cats which also contributes to my well-being.”

The way that UMBC has handled the coronavirus pandemic has served as a comfort to Bush’s mental health, not only for the decision to enact distance-learning but also through consistent email updates from the administration which granted “time to mentally prepare for the transition.”

Not every student will have the same positive experience as Bush when dealing with a sudden change of setting, however. With professors having to quickly adapt their courses to work online and student organizations canceling their events, it is no surprise that the current situation can easily induce stress. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that fear surrounding the coronavirus can lead to a rise in anxiety, especially during self-isolation and social distancing.

“This can feel be hard to do for a range of reasons including but not limited to prior mental health concerns as well as decrease in contact with one’s community (e.g., religious services, volunteer organizations, friends, family, etc.),” stated Dr. Alayna Berkowitz via email. Berkowitz is a licensed therapist and the Assistant Director of Outreach and Mental Health Promotion for UMBC’s Counseling Center.

During a typical semester, the Counseling Center offers a variety of services to students and faculty, including individual, group or couples counseling as well as workshops that teach skills like how to de-stress. The Counseling Center stopped holding in-person meetings on Mar. 19 and will likely not for the rest of the semester, however; they are trying to remain as accessible as possible.

“We are in the process of creating material for students,” Berkowitz said. “We are in the process of targeting student populations so that we can implement online outreach programming likely through Webex.”

Utilizing programs like Webex would allow the Counseling Center staff to interact with groups of students through video conferences. Students are also encouraged by the Counseling Center to call them directly to talk to one of their clinicians during business hours.

Berkowitz also advises students to use the online resources that are already available on the Counseling Center website, such as WellTrack, an app that focuses on anxiety/stress, depression and public speaking, and Koginito, an interactive program that teaches “how to respond to students in distress, LGBTQ students and veteran students.”

As University of Maryland, Baltimore County classes move to online instruction and Maryland companies urge their employees to telework amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Tahia Shendy, a media and communication studies major, is still planning to show up to her spring internship.

Online, that is. 

“We’re not stopping,” said Shendy. “My internship is not over.”

Shendy works as the social media, nonprofit management and event planning intern at Baltimore Homecoming, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a network of people who were born or lived in Baltimore City or the greater Baltimore region. This network of people is designed to “spark new partnerships, investments and collaborations” in Baltimore, according to the organization’s website.

Most of Baltimore Homecoming’s biggest events have not been impacted since they occur in the summer and fall, Shendy said, and while her transition online has not been “crazy,” there are definitely challenges.

“It’s very difficult to network online,” Shendy said, referring to Baltimore Homecoming’s mission to reach out to and connect with former Baltimore community members. She also misses receiving in-person guidance from her supervisors and mentors, though she noted that they have been “very supportive” throughout the transition. 

For some students, though, maintaining an internship or service-learning opportunity online is impossible. 

Vincent Moreland, an MCS major graduating in the fall of 2020, held an ESPN/Athletics TV Production spring internship with the UMBC Athletics department, which was cut short when the department suspended all spring athletic practices, meetings and competitions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Collegiate Athletic Association later canceled all remaining winter and spring championships.

Moreland, who hopes to be a sports broadcaster, got the internship after taking a sports production class over the winter, which teaches students the basics of sports broadcasting. Moreland was then able to take the skills he learned in the class into the semester to broadcast different UMBC athletics games for ESPN+, a subscription-based sports streaming service. 

Moreland was most excited for his work during UMBC’s baseball season, which he was also hoping to be able to commentate. 

“It’s very disappointing to have an internship cut so quickly,” Moreland said. “I’m going to miss it.”

Moreland, however, has one more semester at UMBC, and he hopes to be able to continue his work with the Athletics department in the fall.

MCS majors, like Moreland and Shendy, are required to complete internships in order to graduate. And while some students have been able to transition online or continue their internships in the fall, others may not be able to. 

Dr. Donald Snyder, a senior lecturer in the MCS department and the professor for the department’s internship class, stated in an email sent to MCS students last week that the 120 hour internship requirement will be waived for those negatively impacted who are currently placed in an internship.

The Career Center, which handles all internship, co-op and research practicums, has been communicating with students and supervisors to shift to remote work and has been “not encouraging students to drop” their internships, according to Career Center director Christine Routzahn. 

“We don’t want students to feel like they have to drop the practicum in any way,” Routzahn said, and added that typical Career Center services, like recruitment events or resume critiques, will be held over Webex. “Our offices are open remotely.”

Like the Career Center, the Shriver Center, which coordinates service learning and community engagement opportunities for students, is also open remotely, and director Michele Wolff said that her office is trying to “maintain as many services as we can.” 

Many students are shifting towards what Wolff calls “indirect service” by working on projects virtually, but so far, everything has been handled on a case-by-case basis.  

“We’ll be working very hard to get students back out there and provide critical services that everyone’s going to need,” Wolff said. 

In the meantime, Shendy is striving to be optimistic for the future. 

“Homecoming has been really, really awesome,” Shendy said. “I’m definitely one of the lucky ones.”

Not every founding member of a student organization gets to see it through to its first big national competition, but for Laina Colony and senior mechanical engineering major Zachary Voelkel, that dream became a reality — and a second place win.

Colony, president, and Voelkel, vice president, have been with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Snowmobile Club since it was founded in 2017. 

“To get up to competition within three years — we’re really excited about that, really proud of that,” said Voelkel. “It’s been incredibly fulfilling and exciting seeing it from the start.”

The official title of the club is the Society of Automotive Engineers Clean Snowmobile Club, and it was created to participate in SAE’s Clean Snowmobile Challenge, an engineering design competition which asks participants to “reengineer an existing snowmobile to reduce emissions and noise,” according to the challenge’s website.  

But the road to reengineer a snowmobile begins with, you guessed it, having a snowmobile, a project that would ultimately take two years. 

Initially, the club looked into getting a snowmobile sponsored by an engineering company, but since they were a new club and had not participated in any competitions, they were not able to get a sponsorship. 

So club members resigned themselves to buying one. But since the price of a snowmobile ranges from $2,000 to $10,000, they knew they would need some help. They submitted a request to the Student Government Association’s Finance Board for the snowmobile and other necessary tools, and upon approval in November of 2018, they were ready to begin.

To meet the goals of the Clean Snowmobile Challenge, a snowmobile must be able to run on 0-85 percent ethanol fuel, reducing its emissions, and it must be quiet. Snowmobiles are tested for these two criteria over the course of a one week competition at the Keweenaw Research Center, a vehicle development center in Houghton, Michigan. Teams are then scored based on how well they complete different tasks and challenges. 

Colony sat the team down in August of last year to plan what they needed to buy and what they needed to manufacture to compete in this year’s competition with a spark-ignited, or gasoline-powered, snowmobile. The fall semester was dedicated to making sure they had all of the materials ready to work on the snowmobile come winter break; since the snowmobile was housed off-campus at an autoshop in Frederick, Maryland, the club pushed most of its reengineering work to when members had the most availability and could travel off-campus.

Over winter break, club members worked primarily on weekends to get the snowmobile ready to compete. They converted the fuel system using a catalytic converter from a V8 engine and added noise deadening elements. They “tanked up” the cooling system, according to Voelkel. They even added UMBC logo decals to the sides of the snowmobile. 

The team was not able to test if their modified snowmobile would be able to run on ethanol fuel until the weekend before the competition, but with a positive test, they packed it into a trailer towed by Todd Reppert, an industry mentor from Volvo, and began the seventeen hour drive to Houghton.

From there, it was non-stop. Monday: tech inspection. Tuesday: a 100-mile endurance event on 66 percent ethanol-based fuel. (Ethanol, Colony explains, reduces your mileage, so this tested for the snowmobile’s fuel conversion capabilities). Wednesday: Two emissions tests, several different oral presentations and noise-testing events. Thursday: Subjective handling events, where judges and professional riders evaluated agility and maneuverability of the vehicle. Friday: the cold-start event, where snowmobiles are left out overnight and then given 20 seconds to start up again in the morning.

The final two events — objective handling and acceleration testing — were canceled due to adverse weather conditions, and teams were sent home early without knowing final results of the competition as the first of the campus closures due to the COVID-19 outbreak went into effect. 

UMBC’s Snowmobile Club did not know that they won second place in the spark-ignited category until March 17, three days after leaving Michigan. They were also awarded ‘Rookie of the Year’ and given a plaque for being one of the teams to successfully complete the 100 mile endurance event.

“It was just an overall humbling experience to understand how much work goes into large-scale projects like this, and I think in our design classes and projects on campus, at max it’s a semester’s worth of work,” Colony said. “This has been three year’s worth of work. Watching it start from just an idea and helping it grow … was super fulfilling.”

Both Colony and Voelkel have taken jobs with the Naval Surface Warfare Center post-graduation, but in different departments, and credit their time with the Snowmobile Club with preparing them for the challenges of being engineers. 

Colony and Voelkel said that the club members who participated in the challenge this year, but are not yet graduating, are excited for the opportunity to improve next year. Next year will primarily be spent fine-tuning their current sled, but the club hopes to also get a sponsored sled along the way. 

Most of all, the club is looking to engage new membership and hopes to visit engineering classes in the fall to recruit. Though the meat of their pitch to new members will likely focus on the real world engineering applications of the club, practical engineering experience is not the only thing Colony and her fellow founding members have gained over these past three years.

“The few people that really did stick with the club — no one really knew each other at the beginning, but everyone walked out being friends,” Colony said.