Oregon Resources: Mutual Aid

"This toolkit includes step by step instructions for how you can build your own mutual aid network." This resource discusses what mutual aid is, building a neighborhood pod, how to invite neighbors, health and safety tips, and more resources.

"Mutual aid is when everyday people get together to meet each other’s needs, with the shared understanding that the systems we live in are not meeting our needs and that we can meet them together"
This is a short information piece about mutual aid from the University of Georgia's School of Social Work.

A brief introduction to black mutual benefit associations of the antebellum era that include links to primary resource documents. Including the Free African Society, New York African Society for Mutual Relief, Negro Mutual Benefit Societies in Philadelphia, and the Phoenix Society.

In this video, author Jessica Gordon Nembhard shares her research from her book "Collective Courage". This interview discusses the ways in which mutual aid networks and cooperative economics are historically embedded in Black communities.

This collection of essays was written in 1902 by Russian naturalist and anarchist philosopher, Peter Kropotkin. Kropotkin is not the first to discuss mutual aid, however, this work is a massively influential work on the subject of mutual aid. In this collection of essays Kropotkin examines the role of mutually-beneficial cooperation within animals. He then continues on to look at the role of reciprocity (mutual aid) in terms of human society both past and present.

This article provides a brief insight into the ways Mutual Aid has overlapped with Labor movements in the U.S.

In this infographic from Bloomberg, there are examples of nine mutual aid projects throughout history. Beginning with the Free African Society (1787) and ending with The Chicken Soup Brigade of the 1980s/1990s.

Because community members also turned to the Panthers for help with economic and social problems like job discrimination and evictions, the Panthers started community services in 1969 to build community self-determination. The Panthers’ first and most successful community program was the Free Breakfast for Children Program.

This article "survey(s) a small part of the rich cooperative history that Gordon Nembhard chronicles."

Starting your own Mutual Aid effort? Take a look at some of the invaluable resources community organizers have created.

This google document is an explanation on how to adopt a pod mapping situation in times of need for your immediate community.

"I’m teaching a class this fall (2019) at University of Chicago called Queer and Trans Mutual Aid for Survival and Mobilization. Here is the syllabus." - Prof. Dean Spade

This Zine is a quick compilation of resources accessible online to support mutual aid-based projects providing services for their communities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Where to give, volunteer, donate food, and support local restaurants during the novel coronavirus pandemic [and beyond]"

We cook hot, homemade meals 7 days a week to distribute to Portland’s houseless communities. Somebody’s got to do something.

The hygiene station at SJAC helps to provide much needed community hygiene resources, including an outdoor hand washing station, open hours for bathroom access , informational flyers and personal hygiene supplies.

Instagram page of LoveYourBlackCommunity - PDX which promotes "diversity, unity, and equity while supporting and loving our black communities through consistent and committed social reform".

Matzah Bloc is a group of Jewish activists and allies local to the greater Portland area who believe in mutual aid and community care over institutionalized systems. We are dedicated to ensuring that "Never Again” means immediacy and inclusivity, with a dedicated focus on fighting systems of oppression.

Portland's Only Meal Delivery Service Catering to the Sex Worker Community.

We are a mutual aid group in Portland, Oregon.
We mend clothes and other things for the community, and distribute mending kits, patches & zines to help people mend their own stuff, and also make and distribute other fabric-based things that are helpful to others.

"The Portland Disability Justice Collective is a project of The UPRISE Collective. A […] group by and for queer/trans, black, indigenous, multiracial folks and people of color (straight/cis/white disabled folks are welcome, but not centered) sick, disabled, Mad/mentally ill, D/deaf/HoH, low vision/blind, neuroatypical, or otherwise chronically ill people [...] to deepen our understanding, practice, and self-reflection of disability justice and mutual aid."

"We bake for mutual aid & direct aid bake sales."

The Portland Mutual Aid Network started in the summer of 2020 in direct response to the needs of the houseless/unsheltered community in downtown Portland Oregon.

The Rosehip Medic Collective is a group of volunteer Street Medics and health care activists active in Portland, Oregon. We provide first aid and emergency care at protests, direct actions, and other sites of resistance and struggle. We also train other street medics and put on community wellness trainings.

Tutoring Bloc is a Portland-based mutual aid group providing free tutoring to students who need it in the Portland area. We tutor all the way from preschool through college.