Kindness Answers Crisis

Local hospital staff, lunch is on us.

We were inspired by the efforts of Meal Bridge to support two of the industries that are most impacted by this crisis: Health Care and Hospitality. Our team at EO59 arranged lunch from a local cafe for all of the staff of the Hospital in our local community fighting Corona Virus. A print shop donated thank you stickers for each of the meals. Our action inspired the community to pull together and create an ongoing mission known as Meal Bridge Estonia. The local newspaper and Rotary Club, together with countless companies and leaders, have kept this effort thriving with meals going out to night shift staff, the community nursing homes, and ambulance staff. This week we are adding social workers and families that have lost financial security due to CoVID-19 to the list that will be receiving fantastic meals!

Follow, and join, our outreach efforts . . .

We’re taking this challenge personally.

There is no way for us to fight a global crisis of the scale we face with CoVID-19 without taking the battle to the front lines of our own lives. I truly believe that compassion and love will lead us through this dark period. That is something that we are embracing across EO59 during this crisis, as we always have.

Sure, we can all stay home, wash our hands, and embrace the new normal. But, we can also wave to neighbors, ask the elderly if we can bring them a meal (safely), and take steps in our community to protect the less fortunate.

The first thing that I noticed myself is the beauty of having kids in video calls. I have even hoarded up a little collection of things from a fun USDA trucker hat to Portuguese rooster toys to entertain the kids that inevitably wonder what their parents are doing on the phone in the closet all day. It’s the best way to put your counterpart at ease, embrace the fact that we are more than working zombies - we are Moms, Dads, spouses and we are first and foremost supporting our families during all of this.

Remote Sensing can help

It’s clear that when you can’t go out to view a site, remote sensing what is happening from home is a challenge. But, it’s one that is now easier and more affordable than ever. Well beyond EO59 there are efforts globally to make sensor and optical satellite data available to organisations that need it now more than ever. EO59 is part of that solution as well. We’re here any time our clients need us to host one-on-one walk-throughs of data and monitoring sites. Landslides and even locust plagues (yes, I can’t believe it either) aren’t waiting for Corona Virus to end.

Last year, the Zagreb earthquake destroyed the Croatian CoVID response hospital. Another earthquake destroyed the CoVID response center in Oklahoma City as well as the structural failure destroying the CoVID hospital in Wuhan China.

We’re lowering costs and increasing speed

During the crisis we have offered many of the partners we work with sweeping discounts on data to get them back in business. We have delivered results weeks ahead of time, without sacrificing quality, to support emergency operations at critical infrastructure sites in both Europe and the United States.

This is about all of us, together

During Covid hightime last year, I authored an editorial for a publication together with my close friend Attorney Tieranny Cutler, we will close with that.

A Tale of Two Friends

Carl Pucci

Tieranny Cutler 

Tieranny and I grew up in the same small town, chasing Blue Crabs and eating too much fried okra (okay, that was me).  After a few international stints, she became an immigration lawyer and moved to Atlanta, Georgia.  I moved to Rapla, Estonia, where I work on spaceships.  Every once in a while we check in to chat about our small town start and confirm the world is in one piece.  This time, of course, the conversation had a different tone given the current situation.

Tieranny, we had one of these check-ins just before I left the United States a few weeks ago.  Did you imagine things in the world developing this way?

It was something I feared, but I don't think any of us were ready for the harrowing reality that would soon hit.  We both follow The New York Times and have been reading about developments in China since December.  When I started reading about a similar fate in Italy, I realized the spread of the virus to the rest of the western world was imminent. It was around this time in February that I made preparations to be at home for a while, potentially with the virus.  

By the time we spoke in March, COVID-19 had spread quickly, resulting in the United States restricting travel from the Schengen Area, including Estonia.  With everything moving so rapidly, you decided to return to Estonia.  

After stopping in Germany and catching an Estonian repatriation flight, I did finally make it home to Rapla, where I was told, “Mr. Pucci, as you’ve just arrived, you’ll be quarantined. You can take walks, just stay clear from others.”

I wandered down to Rapla’s river to find garbage everywhere, which gave me a mission; I returned every day of my quarantine to try to clean the beautiful place I call home.  The day my quarantine ended, I danced through Selver, joyfully snapping photos of all the toilet paper, and plotting how to mail it to family in New York.  

The riverside was now cleaner, but there was nowhere else left to go.  Everything in Rapla, and all of Estonia, had closed within those few short weeks I was quarantined.  Tieranny encountered a similar situation in Atlanta.  Businesses transitioned to teleworking models, restaurants closed their dining rooms, and grocery stores began operating like night clubs with "one in, one out" policies.  In a matter of weeks, our worlds had turned upside down.   

I’ve fallen in love with Rapla, watching it grow, and committing myself to waving and clumsily saying “Tere” (“Hello”) to everyone.  As I read my treasured paper copy of the New York Times beside a copy of Raplamaa Sonumid one morning, a text message came from Tieranny:  “Check this out: www.themealbridge.com."  

Tieranny, what was in that link you sent me?

In a word, hope.  The Meal Bridge was created to bridge two industries most heavily impacted by this crisis:  the healthcare industry facing unprecedented demand and peril, and the restaurant industry, which has been forced to close its doors.  The Meal Bridge enables hospitals to post daily shifts open to meal donations and provides a list of local restaurants providing take-out meals.  The Meal Bridge's mission is to generate needed business for restaurants while feeding Atlanta's brave healthcare workers.  Not only has it succeeded in its initial mission and boosted morale within the greater Atlanta community, but it has inspired a ripple effect on a global level, including the effort you kicked off in Rapla.  

As an immigration attorney who has worked with clients facing crises, how important is it to find purpose?

It's critical.  For an immigration client, that purpose may be escaping a specific danger or fear of persecution in their home country, or it may be a broader mission of providing a better life for their family.  In any scenario, it is that underlying purpose that enables them to keep fighting.

On a global level, we are facing unprecedented devastation and uncertainty, yet we have seen humanity rally together in a unique way to pursue the ultimate purpose:  survival.  On all levels, we are all trying to survive this pandemic, and it's compassionate and generous acts like The Meal Bridge, the effort you've replicated in Estonia, the at-home sewing of thousands of masks for healthcare workers, the 8:00 p.m. cheers, toilet paper libraries, grocery deliveries, social distancing efforts, and others, that will help bring us through this. 

We are all in this together. Use your time to do good for one another and serve your community.  Pick up that piece of trash you stepped over before.  Buy a meal for a healthcare worker.  Support a small business.  Talk to that family member you’ve been meaning to call.  Tell your children the story of the time you did that crazy, sweet thing.  Smile and wave to the person you pass by - you never know just how much that could mean.  Tell the ones you love that you love them.  Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, but we still have today.  

In crisis we define who we are.  We each have a gift to share with this world, and no matter how dark the night, you can be the light.