Don’t miss our first in-person event since the start of the pandemic! At Lunch Date with DESC on June 7, you’ll get to hear from Dr. Helen Chu, leader of the UW team that acted quickly early in the pandemic to detect how far COVID had already spread in our community. This work, featured in the New York Times, is a prime example of making progress despite incredible challenges: turning lemons into lemonade.
Dr. Chu’s Seattle Flu Study launched in 2018 at multiple sites, including DESC, specifically to prepare to respond to a possible future pandemic. When the future arrived earlier than expected, they took a risk and challenged bureaucracy for permission to detect COVID-19 among their flu study samples. It was a risk that paid off. You can read more about that work here, and join us on June 7 for Lunch Date with DESC where our board Secretary, Dr. Nina Maisterra, herself a family physician with UW Medicine, will interview Dr. Chu.
You’ll also hear how DESC has found opportunities for change among the huge challenges of the past years. We’ve moved most of our emergency shelter from crowded congregate settings to private rooms, made progress in getting our staff salaries to a living wage, and worked to design trauma-informed crisis response systems.
Lunch Date with DESC, “Lemons to Lemonade,” will be an upbeat celebration of the progress DESC has made during difficult times. We have a fresh perspective on congregate shelters, seeing expansion of crisis services and have renewed visibility of the critical care our essential workers provide. This hour-long program will include lunch–sandwiches, salad and of course, lemonade–from Ripe Catering.
- 11:30 a.m.-Doors open
- Noon-Program begins
- 1 p.m.-Return to your day, invigorated!
Register here for the 2022 Lunch Date with DESC, Lemons to Lemonade. Individual tickets are $50 apiece, and tables of six are $250.
Masks will be required. Doors will be open for increased circulation, weather permitting. Tables will feature more distancing, so there will be fewer people per table, but we’d be happy to place tables in the same area, if you’d like to buy multiples.
We can’t wait to see you!