Every week since the COVID-19 pandemic first effectively forced us into our homes in mid-March, my mom has mailed to my 11-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son each a card with a greeting of some kind and $1.

The boy is rather oblivious, but his big sister is at least attuned enough to know that she should make an effort to thank her grandmother. I usually don’t have to remind her to do that, to her credit.

But yesterday, upon arrival of yet another card that I retrieved from the mailbox and handed to her, she left it lay unopened all day. Sensing that she might be taking such things for granted, I ultimately made her open it. I asked, “Are you saving all these?” She said, “Oh yeah, I’m stashing the money all over my room!” I said, “No. Are you saving the cards?” She had saved a couple, didn’t know where the rest were.

Therein came a parenting opportunity. It’s good to save the money, I told her, but that’s not what is important here. I told her that her grandmother’s purpose in sending the cards is, No. 1, to show her love, but also — with the uplifting words contained in them — to acknowledge and document the historical event that she and her little brother are enduring as young children.

In covering how the pandemic is affecting the meat industry, I feel we have the privilege of documenting not only a historic moment in the industry’s timeline but also that of humankind — and its collective endurance.

Never, certainly not in the dozen or so years that I’ve worked for Meatingplace, has the industry been so front and center in the consciousness of the public. And, to be certain, the role of producing food and sustenance for people the world over is an important learning — especially for those, who like I did prior to my employment here, took those ever-accessible protein supplies for granted.

But, as with my mom’s greeting cards to my kids, I have to believe there is deeper meaning, that there is more to it than a buck. That’s just a result. How it got there, and who made it happen, is more important. I’m lucky to be able to say I love my job, and that I’ve never once dreaded coming to work. That wouldn’t be true if the only purpose was to create and sell a product.

And so, I’ve been stuffing my mom’s cards in a keepsake box for my young son (and my daughter). I want them to be able to one day look back, hopefully in safer and more stable times, and know that love and care for other humans was paramount in prevailing over hardship.

I say this at a time when COVID-19 is raging on in this country. It’s a time in the meat industry, too, when illnesses remain prevalent and backlogs created by earlier plant closures have required workers to toil every day but Sunday, week after week, which threatens to exacerbate absenteeism.

Money, bonuses and cases of meat sure are immediate and effective incentives to populate those production lines. But I believe what’s going to matter more when we — and the “we,” critically, includes consumers — look back on this point in history are the means by which companies are helping their people get through this mess and expressing care in ways that demonstrate their value for the long haul.

Please share stories and examples of how you’re doing that in the comments. We could all use some inspiration.

So much more than $1

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