What is mutual aid? And why are more people turning to informal efforts to help each other?

When major disruptions happen in communities, often the first people to respond are the residents themselves and their neighbors. When the pandemic shut down daily life or after a disaster like a hurricane or wildfire, people get together to take care of each other.

Even outside of a crisis, some who struggle to meet their needs may turn to mutual aid, the practice of finding resources from within a community and exchanging them for free.

Now, in response to government funding cuts, high prices and political uncertainty, especially targeting immigrants, interest in mutual aid projects has picked up, organizers and participants say.

“The exciting part about mutual aid is that you can really get together and help people in a really meaningful way just by pooling resource