$1,488 raised

noname
Donation protected
As many of you already know Diesel Cafe shut its doors temporarily this week as a measure to keep our staff Diesel Café, which opened in the heart of Somerville's Davis neighborhood twenty years ago, closed indefinitely this Tuesday. This leaves our all-hourly, tipped wage staff without jobs and no idea of what comes next.
We've started this GoFundMe and the DieselCafe-tipjar venmo to collect donations from those who have the means and are inclined to help, whether we've been lucky enough to have you as part of our community or you haven't made your way into our zany, heart-first, Britney-Spears-soundtracked corner of Somerville (yet).
Here's the thing:
Our staff is diverse, vibrant, and tight-knit. The vast majority of us fall into the LGBTQ spectrum. This is no coincidence. Diesel's diversity is by design. From the moment the idea was conceived, it was a queer sanctuary by nature — vital now, and crucial in the years when it was the only one of its kind.
Like many of our beloved regulars, meet-up attendees, and once-in-a-while cameo customers, queer employees come to and stay at Diesel because it is a sanctuary. It's like nowhere else. For many of us, this has been the very first place where we have felt safe, comfortable, and celebrated being fully ourselves. We can be open about who we are here. We can talk about our crushes on girls or our dates with boys. We can try out new pronouns and nobody will blink when your name changes overnight. We have never had to temper our identities, make them easy pills to swallow, or deal with being the one queer member of staff constantly explaining the entire LGBTQ community to the rest of our coworkers and bearing tight smiles when they make "jokes" or demeaning remarks. We've never had to worry that who we are will cost us our jobs. And in this safety, we've learned more about ourselves and each other than any of us could have imagined when filling out our applications.
But these identities, and the intersections many of us experience —— many of us are people of color, people who have grown up in poverty, people who have been homeless, immigrants or children of immigrants, people living with chronic illness and/or neurodivergence —— make us vulnerable.
For many of us, it means that we have no safety net. It means that we live paycheck to paycheck, often luxuriating in that for the first time in our lives after clawing ourselves out of instability before finding Diesel. It is not a given that we will be okay. Some of us are un-partnered (without access to another income), and many of us have partners in situations similar to ours. Many of us have had to choose authentic, joyful, healthy, safe lives over other safeties. Many of us don't have traditional, nuclear families we can reach out to for housing or a bailout.
Diesel is our family. We've found it and chosen it and built it. We care for each other fiercely and we have each others' backs. But when we're all working class kids scraping by, how far can our resources go?
The Coronavirus situation has shined a light on the very real consequences of our country's many systemic failures, ones whose effects we already lived with daily. Even at a workplace that strives to provide fair wages, equitable tips (on a pooled house basis which includes our back of house team), and as many benefits as a small business can possibly offer (and then some), all it takes is one shift in the tides to leave many of us unmoored.
As our government and the ruling class continue to fail us, mutual aid is the most powerful tool we have. Our community has always shown us incredible generosity, and we're grateful for you every day.
If you have the means to kick a few dollars our way or help us spread the world, it would mean and help more than we can say.
We love Diesel, and we love you. We can't wait to be making lattes and sandwiches for you. Until then: everything counts.
With love and gratitude,
the Diesel Fam
We've started this GoFundMe and the DieselCafe-tipjar venmo to collect donations from those who have the means and are inclined to help, whether we've been lucky enough to have you as part of our community or you haven't made your way into our zany, heart-first, Britney-Spears-soundtracked corner of Somerville (yet).
Here's the thing:
Our staff is diverse, vibrant, and tight-knit. The vast majority of us fall into the LGBTQ spectrum. This is no coincidence. Diesel's diversity is by design. From the moment the idea was conceived, it was a queer sanctuary by nature — vital now, and crucial in the years when it was the only one of its kind.
Like many of our beloved regulars, meet-up attendees, and once-in-a-while cameo customers, queer employees come to and stay at Diesel because it is a sanctuary. It's like nowhere else. For many of us, this has been the very first place where we have felt safe, comfortable, and celebrated being fully ourselves. We can be open about who we are here. We can talk about our crushes on girls or our dates with boys. We can try out new pronouns and nobody will blink when your name changes overnight. We have never had to temper our identities, make them easy pills to swallow, or deal with being the one queer member of staff constantly explaining the entire LGBTQ community to the rest of our coworkers and bearing tight smiles when they make "jokes" or demeaning remarks. We've never had to worry that who we are will cost us our jobs. And in this safety, we've learned more about ourselves and each other than any of us could have imagined when filling out our applications.
But these identities, and the intersections many of us experience —— many of us are people of color, people who have grown up in poverty, people who have been homeless, immigrants or children of immigrants, people living with chronic illness and/or neurodivergence —— make us vulnerable.
For many of us, it means that we have no safety net. It means that we live paycheck to paycheck, often luxuriating in that for the first time in our lives after clawing ourselves out of instability before finding Diesel. It is not a given that we will be okay. Some of us are un-partnered (without access to another income), and many of us have partners in situations similar to ours. Many of us have had to choose authentic, joyful, healthy, safe lives over other safeties. Many of us don't have traditional, nuclear families we can reach out to for housing or a bailout.
Diesel is our family. We've found it and chosen it and built it. We care for each other fiercely and we have each others' backs. But when we're all working class kids scraping by, how far can our resources go?
The Coronavirus situation has shined a light on the very real consequences of our country's many systemic failures, ones whose effects we already lived with daily. Even at a workplace that strives to provide fair wages, equitable tips (on a pooled house basis which includes our back of house team), and as many benefits as a small business can possibly offer (and then some), all it takes is one shift in the tides to leave many of us unmoored.
As our government and the ruling class continue to fail us, mutual aid is the most powerful tool we have. Our community has always shown us incredible generosity, and we're grateful for you every day.
If you have the means to kick a few dollars our way or help us spread the world, it would mean and help more than we can say.
We love Diesel, and we love you. We can't wait to be making lattes and sandwiches for you. Until then: everything counts.
With love and gratitude,
the Diesel Fam
Co-organizers (3)
Erin McDonough
Organizer
Somerville, MA

Claudia Morales
Co-organizer
Benjamin Perry
Co-organizer