In the Coronavirus Crisis, a Hero Rises

At the time of the coronavirus, it is crucial to stay at home to keep safe. However, not everyone is fortunate enough to stay at home and watch movies all day. Many people, such as doctors, nurses, and volunteers, have to be in the frontlines to help save people's lives. Today, we will be focusing on Carnegie Vanguard High School's one and only Coach Lamane, who volunteered his time during the COVID-19 crisis to hand out food to families in need.

Coach Lamane is one of the two coaches at Carnegie Vanguard and also happens to be my SSEP teacher. He volunteered for multiple days at various HISD schools to help distribute food for low-income families. He volunteered as soon as he heard about the collaboration between the Houston Food Bank and HISD, which allowed students who qualified for free lunch to continue to receive free lunch during the time of crisis. His first day was March 16 at Wisdom High School and is currently continuing to help distribute food. During his shifts, he hands out peanut butter, fresh produce, fruits, meat, juice, legumes, water, and eggs to many families in need. Many, in particular, are incredibly grateful for the water and eggs they received, which were sold out in many grocery stores.

When asked about which day was the most impactful to him, Coach Lamane said, "March 18 was especially an impactful day at Jane Long Academy because we ran out of most of the food before the end of the shift. There were many low-income single people and large families who were new to the country; some were even refugees from different countries." Although they ran out of food that day, Coach Lamane was still able to pull through and continue to volunteer his time for additional weeks, where, fortunately, every person was provided with a meal. In return, he was rewarded with kind smiles, appreciative nods, and even became CVHS's April employee of the month due to all the time and dedication he spent helping out with food distribution.

Besides teaching, he also regularly volunteers to help transport dogs for people moving to a new state or country, but can't afford to pay for the transportation of their pets. He helps reunite US service members with their dogs by volunteering a fraction of his weekend to cover a leg of the dog transport trip while other volunteers take care of the following distances. He has even saved the life of a dog once, who was choking while tangled in his leash. If he didn't step in, it would have died tied to a pole by an irresponsible owner.

Although Coach Lamane is not quarantined in his home, he still practices social distancing. He is using this time to take care of his kids, work out, and is even building a new vegetable garden in his backyard while repainting his living room. Coach Lamane advises quarantined families to "not stress out and eat healthy, which both in return boosts immunity." He hopes that citizens are practicing social distance and are staying safe so that the country can make a smooth recovery.

Lastly, I want to thank Coach Lamane for taking time out of his day to help benefit our community and indeed rise up as a hero during the time of a crisis.