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PLEASE NOTE! THE “COLLECTIVE CARE” DIRECTORY WILL NOT BE UPDATED HERE ANY LONGER (as of 4/4/2020). INSTEAD, PLEASE VISIT ITS NEW HOME AT https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/collective-care/, WHERE IT WILL CONTINUE TO BE UPDATED DAILY!
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As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps around the world, statist and capitalist structures predictably continue to fail us in many ways. Underlying that failure is the stress on individual responses: stockpile, isolate, and care for yourself.
While “social” aka “physical” distancing is a necessary tool to help stop the spread of this virus, it will only be effective if it’s grounded in an ethics and practice of social solidarity and collective care. COVID-19 clearly demonstrates that only by deeply looking out for each other—acting as if everyone’s life has inherent worth and is at risk; as if the health of one is the health of all—will we actually be able to lessen the amount of sickness and death, not to mention the emotional weight on us all. Unless everyone cooperates, the virus exponentially spreads.
Such cooperation has to be about building on—rather than fearing—the fact that we’re all interconnected and impacted by COVID-19; that we’re all in this together. Our cooperation is about making sure everyone can take time off work, have a home and enough food, stay hydrated and wash their hands, not feel alone or abandoned, receive health and other care, and the list goes on. It’s what geographer Peter Kropotkin long called “mutual aid” in his book by the same title—a phenomenon that he saw repeated time and time again in his studies of various species, ecosystems, and societies: mutual aid allowed them to not only survive but also thrive! Or as Kropotkin put it, “Practicing mutual aid is the surest means for giving each other and to all the greatest safety, the best guarantee of existence.”
Thanks to your local radical healers, queers, feminists, anarchists, and like-minded others—who know that only we can love and protect each other—social solidarity and mutual aid pandemic care is blossoming in communities large and small around Turtle Island!
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In hopes of helping folks find and join in a mutual aid effort where they live, offering inspiration to start your own, and/or simply lifting your spirits, below is a growing directory of mutual aid pandemic disaster care (with the acknowledgment that place-names are a colonial imposition). Note: Each project is autonomous and self-organized; they all use public links, so be wary of putting info on these sites/docs that you don’t want to be public too.
Text and directory compiled by Cindy Milstein.
Again, please visit the regularly updated list, now housed at: https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/collective-care/.
Table of Contents
DO-IT-OURSELVES RESOURCES:
General
Beyond Prisons: Short Guide for How to Support Prisoners during the Coronavirus Crisis
Catalogue for Local Mutual Aid Communities Worldwide
Community Response to Covid-19: An Online Summit
Coronavirus Resource Kit
Coronavirus Tech Handbook
Five Demands Posters
Form Letter: A Neighborly Invitation Regarding Coronavirus
Immigrant Justice Accompaniment Skill-Share--Covid-19/Coronavirus Resources
Keeping Each Other Safe When Virtually Organizing Mutual Aid
Know Your Rights during COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
Mutual Aid and Survival
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: In the News
Mutual Aid Hub
Mutual Aid Toolkit by Big Door Brigade
Mutual Fire Brigade (zine)
Useful Mutual Aid Projects in Response to COVID-19: Experiences from Chinese Volunteers in Response to Coronavirus Crisis in Wuhan
What Is Mutual Aid? (video)
You Have Skills: Evaluating What Skills You Can Bring to Radical Organizing
Health and Wellness
All We Have Is Each Other: A Guide to Creating Fabric Masks
CODIY Emergency Handwashing Station
Great Radical, Boil Roots: A Kitchen Witch’s Guide to Wellness in the Time of COVID-19
Half-Assed Disabled Prepper Tips for Preparing for a Coronavirus Quarantine
Immune and Respiratory Herbs: A Resource For Tribal Communities during COVID-19
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: Navigating Trauma
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief Medic Group--COVID Info: When Every Community Is Ground Zero: Pulling Each Other Through a Pandemic
#NoBodyIsDisposable Know Your Rights Guide to Surviving COVID-19 Triage Protocols
Prison Holistic Self-Care and Protection (COVID 19) (English and Spanish versions)
Safety Practices for Mutual Aid Food and Supply Distribution during the Coronavirus Pandemic (zine, English and Spanish versions)
Rent and Other Strikes
Bay Area Rent Strike
COVID-19 Strike Document
Drop Rent Santa Cruz
Grève des loyers: Cancel All Mortgages, Cancel All Rent (English and French versions)
Keep Your Rent, April 1
Rent Strike 2020: Cancel Rent or We Strike
Solidarity/Cooperative Economy
Common Good: Tools for a Common Good Economy
Mutual Aid Network
MUTUAL AID (North America):
General, United States
Covaid
Mutual Aid U.S.A.
Navajo Hopi COVID-19 Response
Alabama
Alabama / Birmingham: Birmingham Mutual Aid
Alabama / Montgomery: Montgomery Mutual Aid
Alabama / Tuscaloosa: Tuscaloosa Mutual Aid
Alaska
Alaska / Juneau: Juneau Mutual Aid: Give Help
Arizona
Arizona / Flagstaff: Kinłání (Flagstaff) Mutual Aid
Arizona / Phoenix: Phoenix Community Mutual Aid Volunteer/Volunteer Sign-up
Arizona / Phoenix: Phoenix Mutual Aid
Arizona / Tucson: Tucson COVID-19 Mutual Aid Volunteer Sign-up
Arizona / Tucson: Tucson Food Share
California
California / Bay Area: Covid-19 Financial Solidarity
California / Bay Area: Bay Area Senior/Disability/Worker Mutual Aid Form
California / Bay Area: SF Bay Area/Nationwide COVID-19 Mutual Aid Resources List
California / East Bay: East Bay Disabled Folks COVID-19 Support Request Form
California / East Bay: East Bay Disability Ally Form
California / Long Beach: Long Beach Mutual Spreadsheet
California / Los Angeles: COVID-19 Mutual Aid (Los Angeles) // Apoyo Mutuo para COVID-19 en Los Angeles
California / Los Angeles: LA Helping Hands
California / Oakland: Oakland at Risk
California / Orange County: Orange County COVID-19 Mutual Aid 2020
California / Pasadena: East Pasadena Neighbor to Neighbor
California / Sacramento: Sacramento COVID-19 Mutual Aid
California / Sacramento: Sacramento COVID-19 Mutual Aid 2020
California / San Diego: We All We Got SD
California / San Francisco: How Can I Help? SF Bay Area
California / San Francisco: SF Bay Mutual Aid Form
California / San Francisco: SF Community Support
California / Santa Clara County: Santa Clara County COVID-19 Financial Solidarity
California / Santa Cruz: COVID Santa Cruz County Aid and Volunteer Form
California / South Bay: South Bay Mutual Aid Intake
California / South Bay: South Bay Mutual Aid Volunteer Intake (English and Spanish versions)
California / Ventura County: COVID-19 Mutual Aid
California / West Marin County: SGV Pandemic Mutual Aid Group
Colorado
Colorado: Front Range Mutual Aid--Giving Help
Colorado / Aurora: Mutual Aid Infrastructure--Aurora, Colorado
Colorado / Boulder: Boulder Coronavirus Community Coping Crew
Colorado / Colorado Springs: COS Mutual Aid Network
Colorado / Denver: CV19 Quarantine Delivery Taskforce--Denver, CO Group
Colorado / Denver: Help Needed in Denver Metro COVID-19
Colorado / Durango and La Plata County: Durango and La Plata County Area Donation Opportunities
Colorado / Grand Junction: Grand Junction Mutual Aid
Connecticut
Connecticut: Connecticut Mutual Aid Network
Connecticut / Hartford, Bridgeport, Waterbury, and New Haven: Mutual Aid Network (English and Spanish versions)
Connecticut / New Haven: Información y apoyo mutuo durante el coronavirus: New Haven, Connecticut
Connecticut / New London: New London Mutual Aid Collective--Community Network
District of Columbia
District of Columbia / Washington: DC Mutual Aid Network
Florida
Florida / Gainesville: Gainesville COVID-19 Mutual Aid
Florida / Tampa: Mutual Aid Greater Tampa--Resources and Information
Florida / Tampa: Tampa Mutual Aid Response--Coronavirus
Georgia
Georgia / Athens: Athens Mutual Aid
Idaho
Idaho: Idaho COVID-19 Mutual Aid Group
Illinois
Illinois / Chicago: COVID-19 Mutual Aid Volunteer Sign-up
Illinois / Chicago: Edgewater Mutual Aid
Illinois / Chicago: Mutual Aid COVID-19 Support Request
Illinois / Chicago: 73.5 Neighborhood Resource Pool
Illinois / Rockford and Northern Illinois: 815 Mutual Aid Network
Indiana
Indiana: Indiana Music Industry Relief Fund
Indiana / Bloomington: Bloomington Mutual Aid for COVID-19
Indiana / Bloomington: No Space for Hate COVID 19 Mutual Aid
Indiana / Monroe County: Monroe County Area Mutual Aid for COVID-19
Iowa
Iowa / Des Moines: Des Moines Service Worker Virtual Tip Jar
Iowa / Des Moines: Request for Aid! Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Des Moines Mutual Aid for Folks Affected by COVID-19
Iowa / Des Moines: Join Des Moines Virtual Tip Jar
Iowa / Des Moines: Volunteer for Aid! Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Des Moines Mutual Aid for Folks Affected by COVID-19
Kansas
Kansas / Kansas City: Strawberry Hill Coronavirus Mutual Aid
Kentucky
Kentucky and Appalachia: Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition, COVID-19 Mutual Aid
Kentucky / Lexington: Mutual Aid Lexington Kentucky
Kentucky / Louisville: Mutual Aid Louisville
Louisiana
Louisiana / Greater New Orleans: GNO COVID-19 Aid Request Form
Louisiana / New Orleans: NOLA COVID-19 Mutual Aid Group
Louisiana / New Orleans: COVID-19 Mutual Aid (New Orleans)
Louisiana / New Orleans: New Orleans Mutual Aid Society
Maine
Maine / Maine Coronavirus Community Assistance
Maine: Mainers Together
Maine / Rockland Area: Resources for Coping with COVID-19 Pandemic
Maine / Southern Maine: Southern Maine DSA CO