Planner Resilience: Laura Maruca, EL Education

How were you able to adapt during COVID-19 when the meeting and events industry got disrupted?

EL Education's motto is "We are crew" which means "the culture of crew impels all members of a community to work together as a team, to pitch in, to help others.... [to] help their colleagues and peers get up the mountain together". Through COVID-19, we've needed to do exactly that. We are an organization that supports K-12 schools across the country - and while this year has been hard for everyone, it's been a particular challenge for educators. Planning events for schools and EL Education staff that were both homebound was even harder.

EL Education's Crew was the reason I was able to adapt during COVID-19. My colleagues came into this pandemic with an all-hands-on-deck attitude, implementing and researching new platforms to provide High-Quality Professional Development and tools to help our schools succeed. Basically overnight, I learned how to support virtual professional development events. I am also grateful for my Conference Direct crew, who were essential in helping me renegotiate countless outstanding contracts. EL has been fortunate that virtual events have been largely successful for us this year. We've learned a lot, and much of how we do the work will continue to shift. But we will be back in person, and I'm counting down the days until that can safely happen.

This post is part of the HopSkip Planner Spotlight Series where we celebrate the extreme resilience shown by planners across the industry when navigating the turbulent waters that COVID-19 has brought to the meetings and events industry. Keep an eye out as we release more stories like this over the next few months.