The goal has been raised
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED.
That’s how many folks have joined the group, Masks for Marquette on Facebook, in the just the last week. This is the group that’s sewing protective masks for health care workers in Marquette County.
The group was thrown together, literally overnight, by Terry Wessels, a conference manager, and Sally Steen, a realtor. Not all of the group is sewing–some are donating money, others providing logistical support.
And Beth Millner Jewelry, with the help of other local businesses, is assembling the nose pieces required for the masks.
The goal originally was to make 3000 masks for UPHS Marquette and Bell–that was what they requested. The number was then raised to 6000, and now, according to Wessels, the goal is 10,000. Priority is going to the hospitals, and then to law enforcement, EMT’s and nursing homes. Wessels emphasizes, however, that the first masks need to go to the hospitals.
“We’re ramping up because we want to be prepared,” she says. She points out that even now with only a few cases identified in the UP, hospital workers are concerned that there may be patients in the hospitals, still undiagnosed, with the virus. Much better to be safe than sorry.
Wessels says Masks for Marquette is still looking for volunteers who can join on Facebook, and they’re still soliciting donations for materials at their GoFundMe site.
Where have all the animals gone?
NORMALLY UPAWS HAS maybe 60 or 70 animals in its kennels.
As of Friday morning, they had exactly four, all dogs, including Prince, the one-year-old in the photo above.
A major weeklong adoption event sponsored by Bissell (cleaning products manufacturer) and UPAWS that ended just a few days ago helped empty the kennels.
But there’s likely another factor involved: the coronavirus outbreak and clampdown. “We’re all in this together,” says supervisor Hayley Weston. “We have a lot more time at home. We’re self quarantining, and a lot of people are thinking, ‘I want to get a pet, I want some companionship.'”
And the bonus? The coronavirus, experts say, has absolutely no effect on our pets.
What goes down must come up
MASSIVE PANICKING AT our local stock brokerages and investment companies?
Not really, says investment advisor Zach Sturdy at Northstar Investment Management.
“Our call volume has really not gone up all that much,” he reports. “Our clients are watching and reading the news, they know what’s happening, they seem calm, and they’re pretty optimistic about what’s going to happen in the back half of this year.”
Sturdy says even before the pandemic, the economy might have been inching toward a recession while stock prices remained expensive, so a market correction was not out of the question.
Advice? Stay calm, follow the market, and look for bargains as the economy recovers.
It will happen, of course; it’s just a matter of when.
A major slowdown, but not a total shutdown
WITH GOVERNOR WHITMER’S mandated shutdown of most non-essential business, you might think the real estate business has ground to a halt.
Nope.
“We can’t show properties, which is unfortunate, ” says broker Terry Huffman, “but we’re all able to work from home. People are still buying and selling.”
And closing on properties, as well? Yep, they’re still doing it, mostly electronically. Title companies are open but only by appointment.
Huffman concedes that business has slowed and that realtors, like so many others, may take a major hit, but he offers not one word of criticism. “This is all for the greater good,” he says. “We’re all just going to have to wait it out.”