Jonquilyn Hill

And that that's enough right now is sort of recognizing that you can do something.

And it also doesn't have to be the total solution to the problem.

Can you talk about maybe some recent examples of ways mutual aid has filled in the gaps where government assistance has not?

Definitely after natural disasters, you'll see like a huge range of mutual aid practices, whether it's a wildfire or a hurricane.

There's a beautiful example down in New Orleans of what they called a community power map where

Where initially it was, you know, I think run by a volunteer group that allowed people to identify if they had power still in their home.

And so you could go there to their porch and plug in your devices.

I mean, I think that's like a great example of the way that mutual aid is really solving your problem as well as your neighbor's problem at the same time.

Okay, what are some of the challenges for mutual aid groups compared to, I don't know, the more traditional ways of giving?

I mean, if you are collecting money for anything, yeah, mutual aid groups need to think a little bit about how they're doing that.

Because if someone just gets $10,000 into their Venmo account, that can look like income and taxable income.

So you also want to think about like the privacy and security of the people you're involved with.

Like if you are bringing food to people who are scared to go outside because of their immigration status and you have their addresses, you should think really carefully about where you're storing that information and who has access to it.

I think the power of these networks is that they can respond very fast and be very nimble and change their operations and really also operates very locally and be very accountable to the people that they're trying to serve.

But you are also doing it without a lawyer.

And, you know, I think people need to balance their sort of appetite for risk.

But, I mean, these organizers also find a lot of meaning and benefit from organizing like this.

You know, a lot of these groups ramped up during the pandemic, and then there were snap cuts and natural disasters.

Do you think these compounding crises are contributing to that increase in mutual aid?

Like, is it the world we live in now that's kind of, I don't know, making people draw together a little bit more?