Our Stories: Shylee Saladi–Making sure others less fortunate are able to eat

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Shylee, 22′, sells Girl Scout cookies with her sister outside of her home.

“For the past month, my family and I have been at home, ordering groceries, only going out when necessary, and making sure that others who aren’t as fortunate as us are able to eat. We have been quite worried about the growing cases of COVID in Illinois as it keeps rising even with the stay-at-home order in place. In Glencoe, I feel that people are taking this very seriously as I have not seen many people outside. Staying at home for a long period of time is hard because my family gets very easily sick of each other, but it has been nice to relax more and focus on eating, sleeping, and being more healthy. I think that this pandemic has had a negative effect overall, in terms of doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals being put at risk while working every single day. Since my dad is a doctor, he was working for the first two weeks of the pandemic as the cases started to rise, and we were lucky because he was able to get the masks and protective wear in his hospital; not every healthcare professional is able to get these things. My sister is in her 3rd year of medical school and it has been really difficult for her to study and learn about different medical fields being at home and not interacting with the patients. She hasn’t been able to go on any of her rotations during this pandemic and hasn’t had any contact with the hospital.

I am really sad that the spring season ended so soon because it is really important to get exercise every day. Since we are limiting our exposure, my sister and I have been doing Zumba every Sunday, and we are doing home workouts with our entire family to stay active. My dad and I run every other day for one mile to start the day with exercise. Since I am a Girl Scout, I had a lot of leftover boxes of cookies from the cookie season, so I made a stand to sell Girl Scout cookies to any person walking past my house. It was a contact-free way to sell a sweet treat. I used Venmo, Chase Quickpay, and cash to receive payments, and the people who wanted cookies were able to take it off the table. I am looking forward to being able to go outside without worrying about passing people on the sidewalk, going out to eat with my family, and seeing my friends.”