“The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.” – Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
An important part of building sustainable mutual aid projects,
especially those survival programs that seek to redistribute expensive
gear that cannot be easily appropriated, is a consistent effort to reach
out to new people who may have excess supplies and are willing to give
them but have not given them away yet.
In light of this, members of our mutual aid committee and close
comrades developed what we believe to be a novel system of soliciting
materials for mutual aid drives that delivers large quantities of
survival goods on a short time frame with minimal cost and time
commitment. This method, based on a project many Scout troops engage
in, resulted in the collection and redistribution of hundreds of pounds
of food, clothing, toiletries, and survival gear for unhoused people in
our communities, and can be replicated by any mutual aid group.
The project itself can have its work divided into three types and we
found each to take roughly the same amount of time, with the final steps
taking the longest. The timetable for the project was a few days longer
than a week, including the wrangling of friends to participate in
distribution and securing a place to store the goods after we learned
how much was donated.
First, we collected brown grocery bags from a local “woke” store.
Calling ahead and explaining the project yielded a few hundred bags we
were able to pick up within an hour. To these bags, we attached a single
sheet of paper explaining the project, our organization, and the
purpose of mutual aid, with our contact info bookending.
After determining the neighborhoods we deemed most likely to have and
share survival gear, teams of two or three spread through a local city.
Leaving the bags, with their attached notes, on door handles and in
door-jams, teams were able to cover between 50 and 100 houses per hour.
Most of this work was done in one go the Saturday before collection,
though a significant amount was done on Tuesday and Wednesday of that
week.
Copy of our outreach flyer.
On the day of collection, groups of two and three drove around the
neighborhoods where bags were left and collected the donated items. This
step took many trips, as the goods collected surprised us in terms of
quantity and we had to frequently unload our full cars to fit more
supplies. We took what was gathered, sorted them into food (canned and
otherwise), clothing, survival gear, and toiletries, then stored them.
In total, about twenty hours of work – with many opportunities to
streamline the process – yielded monumental results. We intend to repeat
the process in the communities we serve and are keeping a map of
whatever neighborhood we visit so as to not repeatedly hit any one
place.
Some tips and ideas for improvement:
Leave thank you notes when picking up bags. This will give you a
clear number of places that donated and will build good will with your
neighbors. Remind them why their help matters, they may choose to become
more involved in mutual aid because of your labor.
Experiment in the sorts of neighborhoods you leave bags in. We found
success in neighborhoods with mid priced rentals and cheaper homes, as
well as in older neighborhoods. We did not find as much success in
student neighborhoods. These are local conditions, though, and hitting a
variety of communities can give you a better idea of where your labor
is best spent.
There are plenty of easy ways to compartmentalize tasks in this,
which may be useful in guaranteeing safety of participants while also
bringing newer/less known people in. Distribution of bags comes to mind
first.
Turn around time should be quick, but not too fast. Anecdotally, it
seems like neighborhoods we hit on Tuesday and Wednesday donated at
higher rates, but not enough data was collected to test this. Collecting
goods any more than a week after leaving bags seems like it would lead
to worse results, as may collection within a day or two of distribution.
Incorporating local events or referencing the season may be a good
way to increase donations. A supply drive around Christmas may be more
bountiful than one in mid-January, for example. In cities where
anti-homeless persecution is well known, this information can be used to
drive home the need for those extra goods a household may have.
Be aware of the weather. We distributed during a windstorm and this
blew away a number of bags, decreasing donations in that neighborhood.
A project like this is easily to replicate and has shown results. With
some small changes, it can provide a covid-safe, easily expandable and
labor saving method to mass gear collection. Let us know how things go,
if you try this method: nococmad@protonmail.com.
Centrists are still like “omg progressives where’s the PROOF?” Like who the fuck do they think they are, Republicans? Where’s the proof that fighting nascent fascism with middle of the road policies doesn’t really get shit done? Like. The past forty years of American politics is proof? The last 10 years of double-down conservatism due to the fact that we had a Black president and the FBI says that white supremacy stemming from that is a domestic terrorism threat isn’t proof?
Centrism just appeals to white voters that don’t want to be labeled as racists. They want things to remain the same and not have to do any introspection, but they DO NOT CARE about people still being harmed by centrist policies when republicans continue to get to define what the center even is.
@odinsblog talks about the evils of centrism more effectively and more often than I do so please follow him. Centrism is a right-wing tool to kill democracy, and Democrats trying to stifle any progressive or leftist policies are doing the devil’s work.
Nascent democratic movements around the world will absolutely be harmed by what’s happened. Democracies that were in peril because of the pandemic will be harmed by what’s happened.
The world is going to be a demonstrably harder place to live in because of Donald Trump and his enablers.
For those of us who wept in 2016, we knew it would be bad here, he had basically already promised it. A few of us even saw something like this happening. But fearing it and then seeing it, and now knowing that the shockwaves will continue to resonate throughout humanity is a lot to swallow.
The Cherokee Nation mandated masks in February and leaders encouraged people to take social distancing seriously, so they’re bucking the trends of the surrounding state and the nation.
Effective leadership seems to have made a massive difference.
