Throughout the country, there are hundreds of thousands of first responders on the frontline, fighting COVID-19 and helping patients suffering from this virus. Community members, including right here in Chicago, have also stepped up to serve others. We at Marquee Sports Network want to recognize all of these Hometown Heroes for their efforts.

COVID-19 hit different groups hard, and it changed the education system drastically with now all schools in the state of Illinois closed for the rest of the 2019-2020 academic year. When e-learning became a reality, two high school freshmen, Krishita Dutta and Lauren Tapper, at the University of Chicago Lab schools wanted to collaborate to help those students across the country. That’s when the website covidtv.com was born.

“We both came up with the idea when we realized all the really unfamiliar feelings that quarantine was bringing to us. We realized that we wanted to do something about it and more than just staying in touch with our friends. We wanted to help people know that we’re all in this together,” Dutta said.

They took it a step further, to go beyond mental health.

Dutta said, “That’s why we opened up our community projects where we have ambassadors all across the US who are taking action in our 4 categories which are build a mask, food for all, support the unemployed and speak up and write to your state.”

In the three weeks that these projects became active, they raised over $10,000 and created over 4,000 masks. Dutta and Tapper want those in high school and college to know that there is an outlet for you if you need help.

Tapper said, “ We may be separated and our worlds may be kind of flipped upside down right now, but this COVIDTV is really a supportive community. It’s just allowing us to connect teens around the world and have this uniting experience because we’re all going through the same thing. Through COVIDTV, we can come together as a community instead of isolating ourselves.”

If you would like to sign up for one of their four projects, you can head to their projects page on their website.

If you would like to nominate our next Hometown Hero, you can click here.