Our Community Responds: A Letter from the Chair of the Coffee Technicians Guild

By Hylan Joseph

Winston Churchill once said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

This is a challenging time for the world. We are at the point where we need to question our accepted day-to-day reality and we need to seek rapid answers to questions that we may not have asked before.

In my life, I’ve lived through three big crises where my worldview was altered: the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, the Northridge Earthquake of 1994, and the early years of the AIDS crisis in San Francisco, CA. 

There were lessons learned, hard ones. There is nothing like an earthquake to remind you how inconsequential you are. In 1989, my café crew and I stood out on the lawn at Ghirardelli Square and watched as both the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate rattled and shook as the fires rose from the Maria District.

My only experience with an epidemic before this was in 1984-85; I had moved to San Francisco right after high school for college. It was an incredibly vibrant and creative time in the Bay Area, but the AIDs epidemic was just taking hold and there were no clear treatments early on. Over a period of 18 months, I lost 11 good friends. I observed a public health care system stumble through how to treat it. I saw differing groups of people swear they would never get the disease, so they ignored it and, in the end, may have helped it spread.

I learned a lot from these three events, key things I didn’t really think about until I was in the middle of them. It seems trifling to remember to stay safe, stay informed, and stay calm, but you really don’t realize how important the three states of being are until you must rely on them. 

Fear, panic, and uncertainty have become benchmark for how we feel today. How do we help alleviate this?

Is there a solution? The most powerful lesson I learned during these events was the importance of communities. In each of these times, I was amazed by the altruism of people and communities—how in each situation, the local community stood up, galvanized support, and helped out.

Now it is time for us to stand up and support where we can. The Specialty Coffee Association is a massive group of like-minded individuals socially connected unlike any generation before this. As a group, there is a lot that we can do to support each other.

Personally, I encourage you to reach out to friends and family to check in on them. If you know someone who lives alone during this time, call them and check in on them. If you’re a member of the Coffee Technicians Guild, reach out to the group on the Slack channel.

The SCA is posting updates almost daily. We will get through this and we will learn from it. Please stay safe, stay calm, and stay informed.

And, of course, wash your hands.