In April of 2020 — at the height of fear, anxiety and uncertainty — we noticed dozens of students posting on social media that their internship had been canceled. Many went to LinkedIn, desperate to find an employer for the summer. They knocked and we didn’t see anyone answering.

At the same time, we drove down the streets we grew up on and saw our favorite restaurants, retail stores, and family-owned businesses with the doors shut and the lights off — some forever. These are individuals with bills to pay, children to raise who are back home from school, and a business to keep afloat. We knew we had to do something. But what? Provide financial consulting services? Build them a tech product?

We reached out to over 50 businesses to ask how we could help and more than 80% of them answered that they need to find better ways to engage consumers online.

In two days, we leveraged a network of 40 friends and family ready to join us as we launched what was known as Covid Fellows. A month after that, we’d built a digital marketing curriculum with industry experts. We‘d also recruited a diverse group of 50 small businesses, 50 students and 100 mentors to join our social experiment.

Now, over a year since the pandemic struck our country, we’ve engaged over 350 students, professionals, small business owners and friends of Covalent. And there’s much more work to do.

We hope you’ll join us for the journey.