Eaton DC Helps District Endure Coronavirus Pandemic

WASHINGTON, DC — While much of the District is focused on the phased reopening of the city on Friday, which will allow many businesses to operate again with restrictions, it's worth noting how one D.C. business stepped up to help communities in need make it through the coronavirus pandemic.

Founded by activist Katherine Lo, Eaton DC is more than an 209-room hotel. It's home to the Eaton House co-working space and Eaton Radio, a multimedia internet radio platform. The facility also houses a cinema, wellness center, and a few different food and beverage outlets, which are venues for live music.

"Eaton is a purpose-driven hospitality company that also serves as a major hub for artists, activists, and creatives," said Sebi Medina-Tayac, Eaton's director of Impact.

Just like the rest of the D.C. hospitality industry, Eaton was affected by Mayor Muriel Bowser's stay-at-home order, which restricted the size of public gatherings and how non-essential businesses could operate.

"It hit us pretty hard from a business perspective, but it gave us the opportunity to start thinking about ways we could use our space to be in service to the community and participate in the citywide relief efforts," Sebi Medina-Tayac said.

The hotel has provided space for Print To Protect, a group of makers who use their 3D printers to produce and donate face shields, CPAP valves, and other essential medical gear. Volunteers would print the parts at home and drop them off later at the Eaton to be quarantined, assembled, and distributed to medical care facilities around the city.

"We pretty much just donated an entire floor for them to work on their 3D printing effort, work out patient protocols and distribution," Medina-Tayac said. "Our first floor is serving as the donation and distribution hub for the DC Mutual Aid Network. It's a community organized initiative to make sure that our neighbors and community members are taken care of."

DC Mutual Aid Network is not a centralized organization or charity, rather it's a neighbors-helping-neighbors effort in Ward 2. For example, DC Mutual Aid has been collecting cleaning supplies, nonperishable food and masks for residents of the Wah Luck House and Mount Vernon Square, two senior living centers in the area. Eaton staff have been helping to collect, sort, and package the donations.

Eaton has provided space for the American Red Cross to conduct blood drives and has allowed Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen to use its kitchens, which had been closed due to the stay-at-home order.

All of these volunteer efforts have helped Eaton to avoid furloughing some of its employees, especially in the area of food preparation.

Eaton House Chef Tim Ma was already working with a local restaurant association to prepare meals for furloughed employees in D.C.

"We were contacted by World Central Kitchen pretty early on, as they were developing this restaurant partnership program," Ma said. "The mission is to not only feed those who need help, but also to put restaurants back in action through this initiative. They've enabled us to be able to produce food for those that need it, but also to be able to rehire some of our employees to help us produce a large amount of meals that go out every day."

Out of one kitchen, Ma and his team have been providing over 1,200 meals a week for World Central Kitchen on top of everything else that they're doing and in conjunction with all the other restaurants participating.

When Lo launched Eaton DC, she had vision of creating a hotel with a mission of community service. According to Ma, the pandemic has helped the hotel to refocus on that mission.

"We were open for a year and a half and we were just so like head forward, head down and getting the outlets open and the hotel all up and running and developing a brand and developing all these different concepts," he said. "This was kind of like a nice, refreshing pause to allow us to realign with our missions again."

Ma and Medina-Tayac hope Eaton DC will carry that mission forward as the city begins to reopen.

"It's so discouraging, especially being in our industry feeling like there's not a lot we can do to really help," Medina-Tayac said. "We started getting creative and working with different community organizations and realizing like, 'Wow, just having the space, having this capacity, having this workforce downtown, actually there's so much we can do.'"

Related:

• DC To Enter Phased Reopening On Friday With Some Restrictions
• Coronavirus: Bowser Extends DC Stay-At-Home Order
• DC Coronavirus: Group Uses 3D Printers To Make PPE For Hospitals
• Arlington Teen Organizes Virtual Activities To Help DC Nonprofit