By Estrella Gutierrez

What makes a community strong is how much we look out for one another.

What I saw in the community this year was that even though we weren’t together physically, we could connect digitally through social media. In my school we had socially distanced contact with each other, and we got all the help we needed. Sports were really popular—they distracted the kids from everything that happened in the last two years. I saw people help each other however they could. 

Something I didn’t see in my community was everyone protecting each other when we needed to the most… especially last year when we needed to quarantine again. Some of us attended online school and passed a grade, but still didn’t know a lot of things we should have when we went back to school. Another thing we didn’t do was show respect to other people who were just trying to protect themselves. 

Some things that people could take note of is that we should follow orders even if we don’t like it so we can protect others who need to be protected.

About Estrella Gutierrez

Estrella Gutierrez is a middle school student at Lincoln K-8 School. She likes writing music lyrics—a passion that made her love writing. The Harry Potter book series is her favorite thing to read. She is involved in AVID at her school, a college readiness and success program that stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. Gutierrez is also involved in MathCounts, a competitive mathematics program, and has received awards for her knowledge of math. She works on her school’s yearbook. Her personality is as bright as her favorite color, yellow, and her goal is to spread love and awareness to everyone through her writing. Guitierrez speaks Spanish and loves cooking with her family, as well as listening to K-Pop.