Coffee Club Enables Deaf To Connect

From: Hartford Courant, United States - Oct 3, 2005

By TRACY GORDON FOX
Courant Staff Writer

October 3 2005

COLCHESTER -- The sunlit front section of Starbucks was hushed on a recent Sunday afternoon, but the crowded, round tables were replete with spirited, timely conversation.

Over disposable cups of coffee and tea, a group of 15 or so customers animatedly discussed topics ranging from their families to the war in Iraq and eminent domain in New London. Women shared stories and photographs of their grandchildren while the men lounged nearby on easy chairs and let the discussion turn to baseball.

They gabbed for several hours, without a spoken word, communicating with their hands at a frantic pace, stopping to sip beverages or check text messages on their vibrating pagers.

The deaf have created their own social club at Starbucks in the center of this rural suburb, a place to gather on lazy Sunday afternoons, where they know there will be others who can communicate through sign language.

"Deaf Chat Coffee," as it is called, began nationwide more than two years ago, and it has spread to Starbucks and other coffee shops across 30 states and in Canada. But the Colchester Starbucks is the only Connecticut location. Since 2004, the deaf have been coming once a month from as far as Rhode Island to the Colchester coffee shop tucked between a pharmacy and a liquor store in a small shopping center.

"Many things to talk about, a lot of things," said Judith Bordeleau, of the Jewett City section of Griswold, who has been deaf since she was a baby. "This is a good idea to go to coffee chat and to enjoy talking to the deaf."

She went to Starbucks on a recent Sunday with her husband, Donald, who has been deaf from an illness since he was 3. They have been married 43 years, have four children and 12 grandchildren.

Laurie Meotti, a deaf woman from Hebron, started the Connecticut chapter of the coffee chat a year ago after reading about it on the Internet while searching for informal social groups for the deaf.

Meotti, a native of Buffalo, lost her hearing when she was 7 after contracting spinal meningitis. The mother of two has served on the Hebron school board and is active in town, communicating with the hearing world primarily through hand-written notes and e-mail.

Before closed captioning television or pagers, the deaf went to their own clubs to socialize. Now, with new technology to communicate, they no longer have to gather in clubs, said Kathy Falco, a teacher from the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford.

"They don't go to the clubs often," Falco said. "So to meet at Deaf Coffee Chat is the only way that deaf people can socialize, like they did in the old times."

JoAnne Rome, public information officer for the school, said it is important for the deaf to be with non-hearing people.

"Without being defined by your deafness, you can just be," Rome said.

That's what Meotti and other deaf people like about the coffee chat. For a few hours, she said, it lets "us just be ourselves."

"The monthly gatherings give us a chance to connect and to cast away all of the communication trials and frustrations," Meotti said.

Wearing a white shirt with the Deaf Chat Coffee logo, which has a fist over a fist symbolizing the act of coffee grinding, the American Sign Language symbol for coffee, Meotti arrived at the Colchester Starbucks last month to find about 10 members of the group already there, sipping coffee.

There were several new members of the group, including a deaf couple, who just moved to Colchester.

They talked about their jobs, technology, sports, current events "and a little bit of good gossip," Meotti said.

"Just like everyone else. But in sign," she said. "I meet some new people and enjoy it."

Through Deaf Chat Coffee, Meotti befriended people such as Linda and Dick Woods, who make the hour drive to Colchester from Bradford, R.I., to socialize.

The Woodses, both deaf, met as teenagers at recreational basketball for the deaf. They have been married for nearly 40 years, and have five grandchildren, but still act like kids.

Linda Woods dresses more like a teenager than a grandmother, wearing a fringed denim skirt and rope sandals with ties that wrap around her ankles.

Woods signs with the drama of a stage actress, revealing her vivacious personality through her expressive eyes, frequent smiles and exaggerated facial expressions. Her perfectly manicured, peach-colored nails that match her shirt glimmer as she signs.

The women talk a lot, "full of gossip," Dick Woods said.

Dick Woods makes a motion of throwing away money to show that his wife shops a lot. But he doesn't seem to mind. He advertises his own passion, the New York Yankees, on his shirt and on matching socks he wears with his Bermuda shorts.

He sat with two other men in the group, signing about submarines, carpentry projects and, of course, the Yankees.

"The Red Sox World Series is known as the Lucky Charm Series," Woods said. "I told them a joke. The Red Sox owners are going to change to a new name for the team, called the Yellow Sox," Woods said, laughing inaudibly.

Hearing customers drift in and out of the store, some staring curiously at the group of signing coffee drinkers, oblivious to what they are talking about.

The whirring of coffee beans being ground, loud music from ceiling speakers and orders shouted for lattes by Starbucks employees go unnoticed by the deaf as they chat among themselves.

Deaf patrons point to their choices from the large menu of coffees and tea, and sometimes write out the more complicated orders, said the store's manager, Scott Chamberlain.

Chamberlain, who used to be assistant manager at Starbucks' Bishop's Corner location, just blocks from the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford, learned some basic sign language from the deaf customers there.

"Just enough to be polite," he said.

One of his employees who has a deaf brother also knows some sign language, he said.

Starbucks has become a community gathering spot, said Lara Wyss, a spokeswoman for Seattle-based Starbucks. The national chain "embraces diversity" and "providing a welcoming atmosphere for the Deaf Chat Coffee meetings is a great example of that," Wyss said.

The monthly coffee chats were already underway when Chamberlain took over managing the Starbucks store.

"It was something to keep alive in the store," he said. "It's a great location and a great function for their community."

Deaf Chat Coffee meets the third Sunday of every month from 2 to 5 p.m. at Starbucks Coffee, 27 Broadway, Colchester. Contact lauriemeotti@netzero.net for more information.

Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant