Not everyone is able to deal with the pandemic the same way.

Evan and Katie Tanner live in Reidsville and their biggest challenge is that they are still young – Evan is 28, Katie, 25 – so they haven’t had time to build up the kind of financial worth it takes to get through this when you can’t make money.

“I was out of work for two months and I didn’t know when we were coming back,” says Katie, who is a hairstylist. That wasn’t a problem for a lot of her friends. “They found a way to monetize their jobs, technically. And so, they could find a way to do things online.”

Even so, the economic downturn has gotten them too.

“Depression and anxiety is real and it really affected me and some of my friends,” Katie says. It became acute when the safety net the state government promised her wasn’t coming through. “We applied (for unemployment) twice and we got denied both times and it was just insane and it was so frustrating.”

Yet, “There wasn’t once that we were like, ‘This is it, we’re done,’” says her husband, Evan, an associate pastor at a church.

Evan is an optimist but even he has had a hard time staying positive over the last year.

“In my brain, it’s just all on pause, ” Evan says. “I’m done hoping it’s going to come back.”

Meet the Tanners and learn more about how they are navigating the pandemic, in this Project 2021 Report.