Nursing Home Lives Matter Twilight Vigil At Roosevelt Island Coler Nursing Facility Saturday March 13, On Facebook Live Too - Honoring Lives Lost And Mourning Loss Of Freedom And Connection Of Those Locked Inside For A Year Says Friends Of Coler Organizers

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.

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