2023 Year-End Update
November 28th, 2023
NOTE POSTED TO GOFUNDME PRECEDING UPDATE: Since our formation in March of 2020, Mutual Aid LA Network has evolved from being a group responding to an emergency to being what we are today, a sustainable hub effective at keeping mutual aid groups, people in need of resources and people with excess resources, connected. We also have a few of our own projects you can learn about within this greater update from the last year linked below.
Part of this end-of-year update is regarding our remaining funds, which is $784. If you are in a position to redistribute some of your financial wealth, we encourage you to do so and trust that your contribution will be greatly appreciated and spent or redistributed with intention. Other resources you can contribute are your social capital, as sharing with your network really does help strengthen this network. If you have time and a specific skill set or even a curiosity and willingness to learn a skill set, we see this as equally valuable to any other contribution. While there are always remote and in-person MALAN projects that could use more people power, MALAN above all is a connector that prioritizes helping you find where you might fit in terms of proximity, area/s of interest, schedule, etc. If you are interested in getting involved with a mutual aid or community care-based effort here in LA County, whether that’s with MALAN or another group, please fill out this form. After you submit the form, we’ll reach out to you as soon as we can.
Thank you for your support thus far, for considering more and for your continued interest in our efforts.
With gratitude,
The folks at Mutual Aid LA Network
FUNDS
At the end of 2022, Mutual Aid LA Network was awarded a 25k grant by United Way, most of which was redistributed or spent over the course of 2023. In addition to this grant, we received another $21,309 in 2023, $16,812 of which was GoFundMe donations and the rest ($4,497) was from various events and fundraisers like holiday gift wrapping tips donated by the employees of Skylight Books, proceeds from Art Mart and several ticketed performances and profit from our merch sales. Out of $46,309, the total 2023 incoming funds, $24,697 was redistributed as Direct Cash Assistance (also known as Direct Aid) to over 60 individuals and families with no means testing or proof of need requirements. $14,837 of our total was redistributed to ~50 mutual aid and community care groups in LA County whose work and values align with our own. The remaining $5,912 went toward purchasing hygiene items for the 3 kit builds we organized, purchasing tents and sleeping bags for unhoused outreach, covering expenses like water and produce bags for our weekly food distribution and finally, toward operational costs like our website and email platform.
PROJECTS
THE DISPATCH–a monthly roundup of ways folks can contribute to LA’s mutual aid and community care-based efforts in the form of time, money and/or items simultaneously illustrating what resources each group offers–will be closing out the year with its 20th issue. Since first being sent out and published in December of 2021 by a team of 2, the Dispatch has become a well-oiled operation made possible by a team of ~8 consistent members and various guest writers from other LA groups and projects. In October of 2022, we began translating and publishing the Dispatch in Spanish and will continue to do so. We’ve reformatted, printed, folded and released 3 physical mini-zine Dispatches, dropping them at local businesses, community fridges and libraries all over the city. More recently, we started adding all relevant dates of events listed in each month’s Dispatch–donation drop-offs, fundraisers, food and supply distros, etc.–to a google calendar that anybody can view and follow. We’re proud of and motivated by the positive feedback we’ve received from various groups who see an increase in support after being included in the Dispatch and equally important, from individual readers who have used the Dispatch as a guide for where and how to plug in. We plan to continue to strengthen this project so that it can be an increasingly accessible and useful resource for everybody in Los Angeles County. We’re always looking for folks to join this team, so please reach out (info@mutualaidla.org) if you’re interested in helping with project management, translation, research, Figma formatting and markdown/HTML!
HYGIENE HELLO! It’s been so wild to see Hygiene Hello!–our project of sourcing and assembling hygiene kits for our unhoused neighbors–grow to produce nearly 900 kits across 3 builds this year. Our own Lincoln Heights Outreach Team distributes many of these but more and more, we’ve been able to connect and share these robust kits with mutual aid groups in Los Angeles that do unhoused outreach, like PUMA, Sidewalk Project, West Valley Mutual Aid, South Bay Abolitionist Collective, Aetna Street Solidarity, Project Q, and more. We continue to receive both sizable shipped donations of hygiene items from companies (oftentimes thanks to our partnership with an awesome connector group called Cathartic) and smaller batches of donations from individuals like hotel shampoos and a handful of toothbrushes from someone’s orthodontist. We love this increase in participation on the sourcing side of things and on the kit build days. Check out the list of items we try to include in every kit and be sure to reach out if you have any of these items (unopened, unexpired) you’d like to donate, to jump in and help source items from companies and/or to get notified about our next kit build (likely to be January of 2024) so you can join!
PRODUCE IN THE PARK, our more than 3-year-old free weekly produce distribution has been better than ever with a new and improved distribution method that resembles a market more than a food bank, giving folks more autonomy in choosing what and how much they’d like. We are consistently seeing high numbers in every category on Thursdays: 7-8 folks picking up 3-5k pounds of produce in Commerce and delivering it to the park, 10-20 volunteers culling, distributing and bagging produce at Saint James Park, 7-10 people signing up to pick up produce and stock a fridge, ~150 folks coming to the park for produce. We have enough committed volunteers, we’ve been able to continue grabbing ~200 ready-to-eat meals each week from Everytable in Vernon and shuttling them to the park where they are distributed to our unhoused neighbors right there and out to the fridges. We’re also able, thanks yet again to some dedicated volunteers, to provide chilled water to folks waiting in line at the park and send frozen water bottles out to the fridges to both keep the fridges cool and hydrate folks with low access to water. Produce in the Park continues to be a welcoming, life-giving, joyous afternoon that all are welcome to join for as little or as long as they’d like. More info can be found on our site and you can sign up via our temporary system using a computer browser.
NEWER PROJECTS
Several other projects of ours burgeoned this year, like our POLI-ED READING GROUP, which is currently meeting weekly via Zoom on Sunday evenings to discuss its fifth book so far, Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson. Anybody is welcome to join this casual, friendly group. Join now or keep an eye on our IG, join the Discord or send us an email (info@mutualaidla.org) saying you’re interested in joining and we’ll get you on an email list that receives reminders for upcoming books.
OPEN ART SUPPLY is a colorful, heartwarming MALAN project that kicked-off in early Spring of 2023 after we were accepted into an art and mutual aid mentorship program led by a Sacramento-based group called Broad Room. This was a beautifully collaborative effort that collected gently used and new art supplies for several months leading up to a great big assembly day where we wound up building 350 art kits that were then distributed to unhoused folks and others with low access to supplies and tools to make and experiment with art. People were thrilled to receive these kits, which had materials to do anything from knit to journal to paint on canvas. In August, we co-hosted a free Trash Art Workshop with trash collage artist April Doodles at Blue Rooster in Los Feliz as a part of this project, which brought in even more art supplies and provided an opportunity for folks to connect, play and give new meaning and life to material typically deemed useless. Learn more about this project and how it’s still functioning. We’d love to do another big collection and build in 2024!
We’re making headway on two resources we’ve desperately needed, looked for, could never find but know LA could really benefit from. The GROUP DIRECTORY we’re creating is a simple database (also viewable as a map) of mutual aid practicing groups in LA County and maybe even a bit beyond. The RESOURCE CATALOG is a bigger, collectively grown and updated database of services and resources offered all over LA, not necessarily practicing mutual aid or aligning with our values. We do not want to withhold information on resources from people but we do want to make a distinction between a mutual aid group and a food distribution organized by a church. We’re building these tools in Airtable, so anybody with Airtable experience or an interest to get experience, consider joining the team. Hop in the discord or email us at info@mutualaidla.org.
RESOURCE RESPONDERS came to life in February of this year with the goal to share the load, share resources and reduce gas-guzzling errands that take you far outside your neighborhood. When Produce in the Park needed more used, thick plastic bags to distribute produce, we gathered and safely mapped a bunch of folks who were willing to be drop-off locations and/or be asked to do pick-ups within a couple miles of their homebase and we call them Resource Responders. We then put out a call for used, thick plastic bag donations (10+, must be clean, and we’ll take clear produce bags, reusable bags and insulated bags as well) and as folks submit forms to donate their pile of bags, we matchmake by looking at what volunteer Resource Responder lives closest, see if they are available/up for it and if yes, connect the two parties so a handoff can happen. With over 115 successful donor to Resource Responder handoffs, we’ve found that the bags (or whatever other item is being donated) makes its way to where it needs to go after it’s in the hands of a Resource Responder quite easily. We’re eager to expand the Resource Responders system to pick up more mutual aid related item donations beyond bags. Sign-up to be a resource responder or to donate bags, both are very helpful!
COLLABORATIONS & MORE…
A few other COOL, FREE and OPEN COLLABORATIONS this year include engaging in several sessions with Generative Conflict Practitioner Ariella L. Morrison, co-organizing an in-person Letter Writing 101 workshop with Natalie Mathos at All Power Books that focused on writing to and in support of political prisoners, co-hosting an in-person Bleed Control and Chemical Irritants skill share with Nomad Medix, and a continued partnership with LA Community Fridges called Fridge Movers team and Fridge Dispatch team that do exactly what it sounds like, source fridges for free and coordinate the moving and replacing of community fridges as needed.
OUR PLATFORM LEAP happened earlier in the year when we transitioned from Slack, a communication platform we felt limited by in function and cost, to Discord, a free and exciting platform that feels more like a limitless, bustling city plaza. We encourage you to join our Discord server and use it to find opportunities to plug into good work going on in your geographical area and area of interest and/or to boost your group’s needs or share an abundance of supplies you’ve come across, etc. Skim our toolkit (it needs an update but it works) and follow the directions up top to join the MALAN Discord server.
THANK YOU! + LINKS
Thank you very much for taking the time to read our 2023 Year-End update. Tax-deductible financial contributions to help sustain our various efforts can be made via our GoFundMe. If you’re interested in contributing your time (in-person and/or remote), jump right in after you have a quick look at our Starter Toolkit, where you’ll find directions and a link to join our main communication and organizing tool, our Discord server.
Mutual Aid LA Network 