When you enter the Hart Cluett Museum in downtown Troy, you’ll find a lot of Rensselaer County history. Curatorial assistant Samantha Mahoski can tell you all about it.

“It’s really interesting to see how people relate to an experience they’re living through,” Mahoski said.

But on the second-floor library, there’s a special new collection that Mahoski has been working on over the last 10 months. A table is filled with items like poems, photos, artworks, and masks. Each tells a different story.

“Some really went into depth about how has COVID impacted you,” Mahoski said. “For example, this person said ‘losing my religion.’ ”

All of the items chronicle the COVID-19 pandemic. Mahoski says it started once they understood the severity and the historic nature of the virus.

So far, about 50 items have been donated, which includes a rainbow hunt sign, articles, and even posters from the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Every face and every story counts,” Mahoski said. “And we would love to be able to provide a platform for people to have their voices heard.”

All of it tells a story from these challenging times. At the Schenectady County Historical Society, Marietta Carr has been in charge of a similar project since March.

“Sharing your personal stories, the antidotes, if you want to do that, we have an online forum,” Carr said.

Poems, stories, articles, and photos have been the most donated items. But Carr says this is just the start. Since we’re still in a pandemic and still witnessing history unfold, she says these items will be collected for years to come.

“As someone who is also living it, it is very difficult to hear some of the more sad and unpleasant side of what is going on,” Carr said.

Anyone interested in researching these items or donating items themselves can contact these museums.

Since they’re still collecting, Carr and Mahoski don’t have plans for an exhibit at the moment. But decades or even a century from now, they see future curators setting it up and telling the story of New Yorkers living the pandemic.

“It’s a lot to live through, and I hope that they can take it all in and be able to understand the severity of what we’re living through,” Mahoski said. “And I hope the pandemic is over by then.”