In 2021, a coalition of national museum and library associations awarded the Peale (Baltimore, Maryland) a Communities for Immunity grant. The goal of the project is for trusted, local institutions to engage their communities in order to boost COVID-19 vaccine confidence. Since being awarded the grant, we've been gathering stories from people about their experiences with COVID and getting the vaccine. This story was recorded in partnership with our friends at the Stoop Storytelling Series, here in Baltimore.
Tristan (00:05): Thank you very much. As you mentioned, I am currently a peer ambassador for VALUE Baltimore, so I'm going to speak briefly about that and then we'll get into the story. As an ambassador for VALUE Baltimore, our job is to talk to pretty much anyone in the city of Baltimore and talk to them about the vaccines that are currently available for COVID-19. We're not there to convince anyone, we're not there to pressure anyone. We are there to talk to people and provide them information. With that, I am pleased to say that our goal has been reached and we are continuing to push that goal. But as of right now, we have reached 80% vaccination rate in Baltimore city for first dose or more. I'm really happy to say that. Thank you.
Tristan (00:50): Now I'm going to tell you a little bit of a story and we're going to start in about March of 2020. A time that I'm sure many of us remember for a myriad of reasons. At that time in March, I was a freshman here at the Baltimore School for the Arts. I was very excited to be here, I was sick of middle school. I was in the same school for eight years over at Roland Park and I was ready to move on. Here I was a freshman at Baltimore school for the Arts and in March here at the school, we have this big fundraiser called Expressions. It's this huge production where we have pretty much every department collaborate together. We have dancers, singers, actors, musicians, we have the stage design people working behind the scene, and it's all in an effort to raise money for arts funding here.
Tristan (01:51): It was around this time, we performed probably around the 7th of March and we had a couple shows. It was a blast, it's probably the most fun I've ever had performing. I got to play things that I had never played we before. It was really fun and we were really happy. Coming off of that last Sunday show, we came into the week feeling exhausted, but with a very, very satisfied feeling in our hearts. It was that Thursday, and I remember this Thursday very well, we were getting ready to go home for the day. I'm a cellist and so I have lessons with a private teacher here. I was scheduled to have a lesson after school because of the fact that there was some scheduling issues and that was the only time we could do it and I was 100% not prepared.
Asset ID: 2022.05.23
Find a complete transcript on the Peale's website.
Photo by Aaron Curtis
The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in the recordings for this project do not necessarily represent those of the Peale or the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
