Transcriber: Sarah M Reviewer: Maria Pericleous
Victoria: Ok.
Jackie: Hi, I am Jackie.
Victoria: Hi, I’m Victoria.
J: Victoria is my daughter, and together we’ve decided
to open and operate a small local business
during the unexpected global pandemic, COVID-19.
Our small business, located in the Atlantic City area,
is an ice cream store called the Island Creamery in New Jersey,
that opened early spring of this year.
V: You see, this wouldn’t have been as hard
if it wasn’t for the fact that both my mom and I
are also full time health care workers.
Once COVID-19 became a serious problem,
our roles as health care providers grew to a whole new level.
We’re here today to talk to you about how we kind of balance both roles
during this unprecedented time.
J: I am a specialized health care practitioner,
trained in respiratory therapy, and have been for the past 15 years.
Respiratory therapy is a branch of medicine
that entails critical care and cardiopulmonary medicine.
A lot of my day-to-day tasks as a respiratory therapist
include examining patients with breathing or cardiopulmonary difficulties,
consulting physicians to develop plans of cares, perform diagnostic testing,
treat patients, monitor their symptoms,
educate them and prepare them to go home with their disease.
V: So I am also in the health care field,
I'm a licensed emergency medical technician,
I am trained to medically assess and treat patients
basically in hospital and pre-hospital settings.
I have had my certification
for approximately four and a half years now,
and I’ve been working in the medical field since 2016.
Recently, I took on a job as an emergency department technician as of last August,
which has allowed me to apply my skills to in-hospital settings.
And a lot of my roles in that field include performing diagnostic tests,
and overall helping out the physicians, the nurses,
and the physician assistants with any tasks that they need executed
down in the emergency department.
J: Island Creamery was not my first small-owned business
and was inspired by my first business that I owned.
When I first began as a respiratory therapist,
I had already been a small business owner
for approximately 16 years, with my first ice cream store.
After selling my first ice cream shop to pursue my career in medicine full time,
I knew it was only a matter of time
before I would want to open up another small business again.
V: Growing up as an only child,
I spent a lot of time with my mom at her first ice cream shop.
So, when my mom brought up the idea of opening up another last year,
I was really excited about the opportunity
to be able to help out my mom with the idea.
So, together we designed a store basically from the ground up.
This basically included us doing the interior design,
a whole menu with specialized products,
a logo, and other products that made Island Creamery kind of one-of-a-kind.
The construction portion of it took some serious time in prepping for opening.
And it also took a lot of time
because of the details having to be worked out.
J: When this idea for Island Creamery took flight,
we never expected it to take place during the COVID-19 breakout.
The COVID-19 heavily impacted the business
and the time we were able to dedicate to the business
simply because our demands at the hospital grew rapidly.
V: With that being said, when we first opened,
we hardly had any customers at all.
People were cautious about leaving their homes to be out in public,
and the business suffered greatly because of it.
Between the construction delays,
the statewide shutdown, and taking precautions,
the business was basically being taken day-to-day.
J: I watched as multiple family-owned businesses
in the neighborhood around us slowly boarded up their windows
and shut down for good.
Some small business owners around us
talked about how it would be their last season for good,
and I couldn’t help but think
how we would make it, being
our first summer, our first season,
if these businesses that have been open for years couldn't make it.
I’d be lying if I said that the panic didn’t set in.
I started to worry that opening the business had been a huge mistake,
and that we wouldn’t make it
through the first season,
how were we going to make it through the next?
V: It also didn’t help that we were both trying
to operate the business, and balance our 12-hour shifts at the hospital.
With the business not taking off the way we hoped
and seeing just how devastating the pandemic was
for people coming into the hospital,
our stress levels were at an ultimate high.
J: It was also difficult to be in the hospital
and be exposed to the virus right from the start,
and not fully knowing the extent to which COVID-19
could impact someone.
In the hospital I witnessed a lot of hysteria
and shortage of personal protective equipment.
A lot of my co-workers stopped coming to work
in fear of taking it home to their families,
which left me afraid to bring it home,
or even to take it to the store.
V: We didn’t know much about COVID-19 when it first became prevalent,
it was almost like running into a burning building
with no knowledge of how to protect ourselves
and save others at the same time.
It was concerning for me especially
because I was spending all of my time basically around a lot of sick people,
and I have a compromised respiratory system,
being that I have really severe asthma.
This basically heightened my fear
of what was to come in the following months.
J: There were many weeks throughout the following months
when we would have to close the doors for a couple of days at a time
to ensure that we were not bringing anything home with us
that could potentially affect our customers.
V: As time went on, though, we were able to hire some extra staff.
That really helped out along the way,
and we were able to keep the shop up and running
on the days that my mom and I couldn’t be there personally.
J: Our primary concern for everyone was safety.
Though the business had an extremely slow first season,
it was important to ensure that we were following
the safety guidelines of capacity and other regulations.
When we first opened, the state ended up shutting down,
which put us at a complete halt.
V: As time went on, though, we found that as the virus progressed,
the curve of the cases began to decrease.
This allowed us to finally open the doors fully for the business
and for customers to come in and experience
our shop and what we had to offer,
which allowed for us to realize
that we were seeing a lot of new faces we didn’t see when we first opened.
J: Though the pandemic threw some unexpected obstacles at us,
we were able to successfully make it through our first season being open
and to anticipate being open for another season next spring.
V: We know that the pandemic won’t be going away any time soon,
so when the time comes for us to open during our next season,
we'll be ready to adapt in any way necessary to ensure the safety
of our staff and customers.
J: This past year has been difficult,
yet rewarding for us and for small businesses,
with the challenges followed by learning to overcome and adapt
to keeping the business open for another day.
V: Thank you everyone so much for watching, I hope you stay safe.
J: Stay safe!