Is 2020 a lost year? Philly had big plans. The pandemic changed them.

What of the plans and goals that were set for 2020 — are they out of reach?

On South Street in Philadelphia on March 28, the only sign of life is people eating their food from Jim's Steaks inside their car.Read moreHEATHER KHALIFA / Staff Photographer

Published April 5, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

A month ago, Julie Hancher had ambitious goals for 2020. The founder of Green Philly, a media start-up focused on sustainability, had launched a podcast and a growing event series, and finally graduated from a co-working space to an office.

“I had a plan to pay off debt, was starting to make traction on sales leads. It really felt like a pivotal year,” she said. In a matter of days, all of that was turned upside down. Now, she said, “I’m rethinking business strategy to survive 2020.”

Just over two weeks into Philadelphia’s citywide shutdown, with a state-issued stay-at-home order extended indefinitely to slow the spread of the coronavirus, people are grappling with the question of: What if this is not just a lost week or a lost month, but a lost year? What of the plans and goals that were set for 2020 — are they already out of reach?

And Philadelphians had so many plans: There were starring roles in school musicals, and spring fashion lines to be launched. Restaurants were set for spring openings, homes were being listed for sale, and freshly renovated Shore resorts were booking record seasons. Weddings were planned, travel booked, online dating profiles created. People had scheduled surgeries, after enduring years of discomfort. Peace Corps recruits had scattered across the world on new assignments. Hundreds of newly trained surgeons were studying for their board exams.

Some of those plans will keep. Others are perishable.

And for those who were just finding their footing, it’s taking every effort to keep from backsliding.

That is the fear for Anna Perng, who already spent much of the school year fighting to get her two children the supports they needed.

“For children with multiple disabilities and complex learning needs, some students lose their skills through even a temporary disruption of services,” she said. Her young son was getting the hang of a communication device with help from speech and occupational therapists. Now, Perng is on her own, encouraging him to keep practicing, so he doesn’t forget how to use it.

Gailen DeJong-Dougherty’s two sons also started the year at a disadvantage: They attend Science Leadership Academy, which was closed for months due to asbestos contamination, leaving students out of school or shuttling between temporary classrooms. They returned to the building in late February, only to be kicked out again by the pandemic.

“They’re feeling let down by the people that are supposed to take care of them, like the School District,” she said. Her son who’s a junior missed his PSATs and other college preparation steps. “He’s kind of just given up.”

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She’s encouraging them to take advantage of the time to follow their passions, study what interests them. “Every minute that you’re a cognizant and awake human being you’re learning," she assures them. "How you apply those things is just different.”

But the sheer scale of the disruption is hard to quantify.

Jo Buyske, chief executive of the American Board of Surgery and an adjunct professor at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, has been fielding panicked inquiries from residents scheduled to take the exams or trying to complete their training.

She made the impossible decision to cancel rigorous oral exams for hundreds of surgeons in April and May, sparking “understandable hysteria." Others now can’t fulfill the requirements to complete their training — either because they have been sent home as part of a “clean team" in case the first team of doctors is exposed to the virus, or because the normal, required surgical rotations have been canceled and elective surgeries postponed so that hospitals can focus on the coronavirus response.

“We’ve published studies that show people are most likely to pass these exams if they take them soon after they finish,” Buyske said. “There’s this incredible tsunami of effects on our trainees.”

At the same time, PowerCorps PHL, which brings disconnected young adults into the workforce, had just begun training its newest cohort when the stay-at-home order took effect.

Now, staff are looking to text and Zoom to keep connected with trainees, who have a great deal to overcome.

“People are taking care of elderly relatives. People are transient and homeless. Folks are displaced from personal disasters like house fires. People are living with their abusers, unfortunately," said Jasmine Oglesby, a clinician with PowerCorps. Their members are still committed to moving forward, but the public-health crisis presents new challenges, she said. One young man, who’d been staying in a shelter, was selected for a rental-assistance program — but, because of the coronavirus, he has so far been unable to tour apartments.

At this moment, no dream is too small or too big to be deferred.

Sheri Barnes of Newtown had put in motion a plan, decades in the making, of buying a New York City pied-a-terre, with plans to stay there for a month, tour the museums and restaurants, and take in a marathon seven Broadway shows before renting it out. “Closing was supposed to be last week,” she said in March. It did not happen. By then, New York was a hot zone, restaurants and museums were closed, and Broadway had gone dark.

Philly native Raqueeb Bey, who works for the nonprofit Grow Pittsburgh, had to shut down a garden-tool lending library and nursery, just as she was preparing for the season ahead. “We had a plan for 1,000 seedlings to grow, and now we don’t even know if this is a possibility.”

Then there are elite runners Patrick Tiernan and Angel Piccirillo, both Villanova graduates. They had aspired to compete in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo in July, and to get married in late August.

Now, the Olympics are delayed to 2021, and they aren’t sure whether they’ll run this year at all — unless you count running on Kelly Drive. Tiernan, who spent three months training for the New York City Half Marathon only for it to be canceled at the last minute, said the uncertainty makes training all but impossible.

As for that August wedding?

“Whether this year or sometime next year, it will happen," Tiernan said. "That’s the main thing we’re saying to ourselves.”

For those in the business world, it’s been a slow process of letting go of deadlines, schedules, and expectations.

“I’m seeing it as a lost year, but also a different kind of year,” said Paige Wolf, who, watching her event contracts dry up, recognized that a financial setback was inevitable. She’s still working to grow her website, PhillyTweens.com, supported by camps that may or may not exist this summer. "I’ll be able to pick up the pieces and see where things end up — but I’m going to have to really be creative.”

Mike Tidwell, sales director for Seaview, a Dolce Hotel in Galloway, N.J., which underwent an $18 million renovation banking on a big 2020 season, spent March scrambling to reschedule weddings, conferences, and golf outings after New Jersey’s stay-at-home order took effect. An optimist, he figures that people will be ready to drive to the Shore before they’ll want to get on a plane for vacation. “There will be pent-up demand.”

Real-estate agents are grappling with the reality that they may be hibernating through what would be peak season. Some have adjusted policies, showing only vacant houses or scheduling virtual tours — but as the scale of the pandemic has set in, others, like Holly Mack-Ward, said they will no longer accept new listings, or conduct even virtual showings.

“My buyers who were ready to go for spring are using this time to get educated and preapproved, to be ready for a delayed spring,” said one Realtor, Brooke Willmes, who was still conducting business via Zoom. “But I don’t know what people’s comfort level is going to be with returning to normal.”

And artists and designers, who survive by selling at craft fairs through the spring and summer, are staring down a year of uncertainty.

That’s true for Mount Airy’s Tina Dixon Spence, who was looking at this as a growth year for her upmarket Buddha Babe line of bibs, blankets, and children’s clothing. She’d invested more in the launch of her spring/summer line than ever before, hiring a professional photographer and social-media marketer.

“Then, everything came to a screeching halt,” she said. Sales stopped. The craft fairs she counts on, particularly the annual Art Star Craft Bazaar held on Mother’s Day weekend at Penn’s Landing, were canceled to stem the spread of the virus. And she isn’t sure when it will be acceptable to aggressively market her wares again.

“I’m just going to roll it over and stop advertising this as ‘spring/summer,' " she said. "I don’t have the capital to put into another collection this year after taking this hit. That’s my pivot: It’s just the ’2020′ collection now.”