A staggering 34% of Covid deaths in the US are linked to nursing homes.
March 13 marks a year since nursing home residents have been in lockdown.
Join us Sat. March 13th at 6 pm outside of Coler Nursing Home or virtually
on FB to mark this sobering milestone.
#HighRiskCovid19
pic.twitter.com/HpZFzIH4G7

— OPEN DOORS (@opendoorsnyc)
March 4, 2021

Coler nursing home residents on Roosevelt Island have been
#lockeddown
for over a year now. They only receive 45 minutes of outside time, and
cannot receive visitors. It is almost every week that new staff member tests
positive and entire units are locked down.
#HighRiskCovid19
pic.twitter.com/gX0awHVxvJ

— OPEN DOORS (@opendoorsnyc)
March 10, 2021

Many of the residents in Coler are Black and brown disabled people, and not
all of them are elderly. The deaths undercounted by the Cuomo admin are
largely POC.
#NursingHomeLivesMatter
founder Vince Pierce created this video in response.
pic.twitter.com/4PhFshQsTN

— OPEN DOORS (@opendoorsnyc)
March 10, 2021

The Friends Of Coler are a group
of Roosevelt Island residents organizing to help the patients and staff of NYC
Health & Hospitals Corp
(HHC) Coler Facility
during the Coronavirus pandemc.  According to Friends Of Coler:

Dear Friends of Coler, 

We invite you to join Nursing Home Lives Matter outside of Coler or on
Facebook live:
facebook.com/opendoorsnyc for
a Twilight Vigil

Join to listen and bear witness to the ongoing human toll of the pandemic’s
mismanagement. We will channel our grief into a call for more holistic
policies and practices to protect nursing home residents because
#IsolationKillsToo.  

Join to read the names of lost friends, hold space for those who remain
nameless, and memorialize this year of catastrophic loss through
remembrances, protest, and poetry by Coler residents and remarks from local
faith leaders and elected officials. We will close with an awe-inspiring
temporal artwork that affirms #NursingHomeLivesMatter

Honoring those we’ve lost and mourning the loss of freedom and connection for
those who’ve been locked inside for a year.

Saturday, March 13, 6 pm EST (Rain Date: Sunday, March 14, 6 pm EST)
In person: Coler Nursing Home—900 Main St, Roosevelt Island, NY
& Virtual: OPEN DOORS Facebook Live:
facebook.com/opendoorsnyc 

Last month the New York Attorney General’s office released a report
declaring that the state vastly undercounted nursing home deaths. It is
unacceptable that these lives were erased and politicized, and once reported
became statistics. March 12th will be one year since the state’ lockdown on
nursing homes began. 

Join us on Saturday, the 13th, at 6pm, outside of Coler Nursing Home and
online, to mark this sobering milestone. From both sides of Coler’s fence,
we will honor those we’ve lost, known and unknown, and mourn the loss of
freedom and connection by those still confined inside Coler and other
congregate facilities, cut off from their agency and loved ones.

One Coler resident describes their experience of isolation this past spring,
summer, fall, winter by saying, “This isn’t a life, this is an existence.”

We will listen and bear witness to the ongoing human toll of the pandemic’s
mismanagement. We will channel our grief into a call for more holistic
policies and practices to protect nursing home residents because
#IsolationKillsToo.  

We will read the names of lost friends, hold space for those who remain
nameless, and memorialize this year of catastrophic loss through
remembrances, protest, and poetry by Coler residents and remarks from local
faith leaders and elected officials. We will close with an awe-inspiring
temporal artwork that affirms #NursingHomeLivesMatter.

If you would like to join
Friends of Coler, send them an email.