Sharing a company newsletter

We've seen comments about us discouraging our mooncrew from protesting in reference to a newsletter we sent to employees, and we want to be transparent about our internal communication referenced on June 3rd. We have posted the newsletter below, regarding our stance, values and some of our work around Black Lives Matter where we also gave health and safety guidelines for mooncrew to reference who were protesting – and who we absolutely supported in doing so.

mooncrew,

i’m writing with a heavy heart. BLACK LIVES MATTER. the systemic and institutionalized racism in our country is being challenged more than we’ve seen in most of our lifetimes. it’s good. it’s necessary. i hope it serves an incredible purpose at this time in our country, when our systems need the most shaking up. i hope it wakes folks who have not been woken to the depth of the racial injustices inherent in our everyday lives. i see in political polls that it has the potential to help us get rid of trump and several other white men in power in the congress and senate. i am hopeful.

i am also still worried about covid and the transmission of covid through the mooncrew.

when we decided to start making ice cream again, and then when we decided to open shops again, i assumed that everyone was reading the news and the CDC guidelines, and our local county and Governor Inslee’s guidelines about how to move through the world during this global pandemic. i know from individual conversations and our friday zoom calls that many of you have been reading all of that and following these guidelines. i also know many of our desires to protest and come out of our houses and move into the light with our community in solidarity has presented a difficult decision between acting out of safety and personal responsibility to not contract or transmit covid and acting out of expression of anger, grief, and the need for change and justice.

that decision is for each of you to make. and i want to offer some reminders to all of you about how your decisions impact your coworkers and our greater community.

Current Public Health Guidelines In King County:

• Everyone, young and old, should stay home and avoid all non-essential contact.
• When you must go out, limit your trips and stay six feet apart from others.
• Wear a face covering when you are at any indoor or outdoor public space where you may be within 6 feet of someone who does not live with you.
• Wash your hands for 20 seconds with soap and water often, or use hand sanitizer often
• Clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces frequently
• King County Public Health acknowledges the importance of protest at this historic moment, and had some great things to say on their website today. Please read this if you are attending protest gatherings.

i encourage each of you to follow these guidelines to the very best of your ability, at work AND away from work.

i also encourage you to think about the circumstances of your coworkers whom you interact with at work:

• some of your fellow mooncrew have come back to work for their own reasons even though they have underlying health conditions that make them at high risk for serious disease and death related to covid.
• some of your coworkers live with and take care of people in high risk categories
• some of your coworkers have small children they wouldn’t be able to take care of if they were sick with covid
• some of your coworkers live in large families in close quarters with multiple generations in their home
• some of your coworkers have clinical anxiety around getting sick with covid
• some of your coworkers are absolutely essential to the survival of this company. the serious illness of many of the people working right now would put our extremely fragile footing as a company in question.

Testing

• if you feel you could have been exposed to the virus, or you are experiencing ANY covid-like symptoms, please stay home and request to be tested as soon as possible.
  • if you have Kaiser Insurance: call the Kaiser Nurse Consulting line (800) 297-6877, let them know your symptoms and possible exposure. they can typically get you in for a test same day.
  • if you don’t have Kaiser Insurance: for people who cannot access testing through their regular health care provider please call the King County COVID-19 Line at 206.477.3977. there are numerous low-barrier testing sites; they will direct you to the one nearest to you. Many of these places provide free or low cost testing. if you have to pay for a test, reach out to people@mollymoon.com. we will reimburse you for your out of pocket costs.
  • PLEASE DO NOT WAIT to get tested. i know many of you feel young and healthy. but please request and get tested for covid as soon as you have any reason to believe you may have it.

Other Actions to Impact Racial Justice

in the HQ team, we’ve been talking about how we can continue to reduce transmission of the virus while impacting racial justice even more than the actions we take every day as people and as a company. i encourage you to look at our instagram stories as Iman, Katie, Greg and Emily work to have bigger impacts every day, every week, every month that we get to work together. i also wanted to share some of those ideas here for you:

• REGISTER TO VOTE, and make sure everyone you know is registered to vote
• Donate to Jaime Harrison, who is running against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina
• Donate to Black Lives Matter in Seattle
• Donate to the NAACP (I am a lifetime member)
• Donate to a local or national Bail Fund
• Volunteer with an organization doing anti-racist community work. There are many. I know Rainier Valley Food Bank needs volunteers right now. I encourage all of you to share organizations you might be volunteering with that need more help. Our beloved Mara Palmer, Columbia City shop manager, is a leader with Africatown Center for Education and Innovation and she may have an upcoming project helping black graduating seniors that can use our help and donations.
• follow black acitivists on the social media you participate in. Louisa recommends the tag #BlackBirdersWeek for some joyful, hopeful representations of Black people enjoying and studying the natural world

these are hard decisions to make, everyone, and actions we shouldn’t have to take. thank you all for being who you are, for caring about justice and humanity so much, and for looking out for each other.

with love and hope for justice,

molly moon