BEING A GOOD NEIGHBOR

May 13, 2020

It pretty much feels like 2020 has put everything we understand about how daily life works into a blender, and it’s still spinning. Routines and schedules, expectations and plans, goals and outlooks — it’s all thrown together and probably not as much in our control as we’re accustomed to.

So in these times of uncertainty, it’s imperative to recognize what matters most — to you as a person, to your work, to how you spend your time and energies. For me, and for the Summit brand, I was slapped in the face several times in the past few weeks with what really matters. And that’s community.

You may be thinking, “oh here Brian goes waxing poetic about community, and what matters.” And yes, that’s precisely what I am going to write about, because right now is the most important time in my adult life to be a leader in a community.

On a podcast last week, activist DeRay Mckesson spoke about the difference between being a good resident, and being a good neighbor. A good resident takes care of their home, feeds their family, mows their grass, and is pleasant to be around. A good neighbor, though, is aware of the other residents. If they don’t have kids, but recognize the Boys and Girls Club down the street needs support, they lend it. And Mckesson’s dichotomy brought to the forefront how I believe the Summit brand needs to double-down on its commitment to being a leader in its community. To being a good neighbor.

Last Thursday when I was driving home from the roastery, I got word from a friend about some aggressive protests in downtown Davidson. A van full of hateful people had parked on the busiest intersection in town and started spewing vitriol toward anyone who wasn’t white, or straight, or wearing enough clothes. Really, they spared nobody — we were all in the line of fire.  I am white, and straight, and wear plenty of clothes, and they even came after me.

Well, these 8 “protestors” started coming pretty hard at some Summit employees, some customers, at our community. They said some of the worst things I’ve ever heard, and I grew up going to Cleveland Browns games. They showed up in our town, unprompted, and were so mean that they left people in tears on every street corner. Historically, Summit has been a bit of a Switzerland in town — we don’t hold political rallies, we tend to avoid hot topics, and we try to be as open, welcoming, and safe to as many people as possible.

But this “protest” wasn’t about who’s running for president, or certain beliefs and laws. This was a situation of a small beehive crashing in our neighborhood and causing chaos. And we can’t stand for that. To be a leader in a community means to speak up when there are wrongs, to protect those unfairly in the line of fire. In this case, our staff simply walking down Main Street was in that line of fire.

So we took a stand. We protested, face-to-face against this hatred and told the “protestors” their energy had no place in our community. Sometimes it takes an incident like this to remind you how important it is to be a good neighbor. Gone are the days when it’s okay to sit quietly and wait for divisiveness to pass. When something is wrong, stand up and say that it’s wrong. We can’t be too shy to call hatred “wrong.” It is.

The Steve Smith Foundation School in uptown Charlotte

I wear a few different hats in my daily life. The two I write about most extensively are my roles within my family and within Summit Coffee. But there’s a third hat, as the Chairperson and founding member of Team Summit Foundation, that means a tremendous amount to me.

My brother, Tim, and i founded TSF in 2014 with the goal to bridge the summer gap for all students in the Lake Norman area, attempting to eliminate the summer slide that adversely affects families who can’t afford summer opportunities. Fast forward six years, and while TSF has raised more money than ever before, summer camps weren’t a thing. So we decided to sit back for a few months and wait for our opportunity to impact our community.

Two weeks ago, Davidson K8 had 17 families who were without internet for virtual learning, and TSF made the donation to cover both hot spots and wireless access for these families. COVID has made life harder for all of us, but it’s our refocused mission to limit the divide its creating in our towns.

Secondly, we were approached by Trane Technologies and the Steve Smith Family Foundation about their partnership to provide a “school” for more than 100 Charlotte students who can’t do virtual learning at home. And while this has nothing to do with summer camps, it has everything to do with helping students whose daily reliance on food and education from school is now in question. So this morning, we fed the students and fueled all the educators.

We’re not moving mountains with TSF, but we’re taking steps to get there. We don’t have the means or bandwidth or even vision to eradicate the divide among Charlotte students. But we do have the means and bandwidth and vision to do something. And if more people did something, the further those somethings would take us.

We don’t know what Summit Coffee is going to look like 6 months from now. We don’t know how Team Summit Foundation is going to raise funds to continue this work 6 months from now. But if we remember that, above all else, it’s important to be a good neighbor, then we’re delivering on our brand promise.

Community matters.