FAIRMONT — Last week, Fairmont Mayor Debbie Foster posted a short message on Facebook, addressing concerns about COVID-19 and the impact it is having on local residents and businesses. The overwhelming positive response to that video has prompted Foster to continue the discourse through weekly televised messages.

Her weekly video will air on Midco’s local access channel, Channel 12, at 8 a.m., 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. every Friday. It also will be available on the city’s website, www.fairmont.org, and on the city’s Facebook page.

“It’s another way to get the facts and the updates out to the community,” Foster said. “I know that there will still be people that won’t get the information because they don’t have access to Internet or Midco so it’s going to be our civic responsibility to reach out to those people to make sure they have the most updated local information.”

The mayor noted that Gemini Studios, the Fairmont company that handles the broadcast of the Fairmont City Council and Fairmont School Board meetings, has offered to use the local access channel to air video updates from the Martin County Sheriff Department, Health and Human Services of Faribault and Martin County, the school district and the medical community.

Foster says she was surprised by the number of positive comments, text messages and phone calls she received after the debut address.

“I’ve been very humbled,” she said. “Hopefully, it’s something that can reassure the community, that when we follow what we are told by the experts, this will be over with sooner rather than later.

“We’ve got to stay home. People were taking this as a hoax at the very beginning. They weren’t taking it seriously, but now we have to listen very carefully to what the professionals have to say.”

Foster, an avid walker, has noticed changes in the community during her frequent outings. There are fewer cars on the street. More families are out walking or riding bicycles.

“There are blessings that have come out of all of this madness and all of this uncertainty. One of them is seeing more families doing things together,” she said.

But some stories cause her usual upbeat positive outlook to falter.

“My heart just aches for people who no longer have their jobs. It’s no fault of their own,” she said.

“And the deaths are tragic enough, but then you hear what the families go through. It’s not just their loved one dying, but they were not able to be by their loved one when they died. It’s a double hurt, losing a loved one and not being there with them.”

Still, Foster remains confident that the community, its families and its businesses will come out of the pandemic and the “stay at home” ordeal stronger than ever.

“I am absolutely convinced of that,” she said.