[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, for this Thanksgiving week, we continue our 10-part end-of-year gratitude series. You can think of this as 10 heroes of community well-being in the year 2020. We're bringing on 10 individuals or leaders of community groups who may not get covered in the news very much, but who have helped make life livable in this year of so much grief and so much need and so much thirsting for justice and equality.

These are not, as I said yesterday when we launched this series, the 10 heroes of community well-being this year. There are tens of thousands just in our listening area to be sure, but these are 10 who have been brought to our attention by colleagues and sources and friends and you on the phones. We will tell 10 community well-being stories for the end of 2020 as representative of how all kinds of people have stepped up this year under these extreme conditions.

We will also have a live Zoom event on Wednesday night, December 9th, to honor three of the champions of community well-being who we will be meeting this event and occasion that the station is generously naming The Lehrer Prize for Community Well-Being. That's Wednesday night at seven o'clock, December 9th. The event is free. You can get reservations for it. It is a virtual event at nypublicradio.org/benefit. With me now is Kelvin Taitt. He is working to help feed his community by delivering groceries.

He's the co-founder of East Brooklyn Mutual Aid and director of operations at Brooklyn Packers, a Black-led, worker-owned food cooperative. That group has been working to create a healthy, robust, standardized grocery box that mutual aid groups across Brooklyn can buy and deliver to community members in need at a low price. The group recently received a citation of good work from the Brooklyn borough president as well. Kelvin, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Kelvin Taitt: Good morning, Brian. Thank you for having me.

Brian: For listeners who still might not be sure exactly what it is, can you define a mutual aid network?

Kelvin: Yes. Well, it's simple. For us, mutual aid is not charity. Mutual aid is a community coming together to ensure that our neighbors in the community are taken care of. Mutual aid is people caring about the people that live amongst them and around them and ensuring that we take responsibility for our communities.

Brian: A distinctive quality of mutual aid in general contrast with charity and state services, let's say, is the absence of conditions for those who wish to receive help. Anyone who wants groceries can get them. How many families do you deliver to each week and were you surprised by how many people signed up for services?

Kelvin: When we first started, we were doing about 30 families a week. We're now up to almost 100 families a week. That's families of all sizes from two-person households to six plus. Especially over the last couple of weeks, we've really seen an uptick in our requests for groceries and food from our neighbors. As surprising as it is, it's not really surprising given where we are right now with the state of affairs and everything in the States and even in New York.

Brian: I know you also got COVID in March. If you feel comfortable talking about it, how was that experience? Did it contribute to your volunteer efforts? Are you getting very involved in starting East Brooklyn Mutual Aid?

Kelvin: Having COVID was not fun. [chuckles] I contracted COVID late February and I was sick for about two to three weeks in March. Just being home, prior to doing mutual aid work, I was working in the entertainment field. I was an MC and I owned an entertainment company. We did private events. We did weddings, sweet sixteens, and corporate events, et cetera.

I lost all of my income once I contracted COVID and COVID shut everything down. I was home. I was sick. I didn't have groceries myself, so I was in need. Some of my neighbors looked out for me and they made sure that I had groceries. My family made sure that I had food while I was not feeling well. For me, I wanted to pay it forward. Two of my neighbors came to me because we are active in our community.

We have a neighborhood association and we really tried to play that role for our neighbors. They came to me and asked if I wanted to be a part of starting a mutual aid group. I didn't understand what that was, so I said yes. What's our mission? I would love to make sure that our neighbors had food on their tables. That was our mission. Our mission was simple. We buy and deliver groceries to our neighbors for free and that's how we started.

Brian: We can take some phone calls. Listeners, do you volunteer for a mutual aid group or do you get food deliveries through a mutual aid group? Tell us about your experience and what you've learned about your community through volunteering or for being volunteered for if you want to put it that way. What challenges have you faced either in fundraising or an organization if you're with a mutual aid?

If you get deliveries through mutual aid, call in and shout out your local group. What do they bring you and how has it helped you or maybe even change your perspective on something? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Tell us about this other affiliation, Brooklyn Packers. Who are they and how did you get involved with them?

Kelvin: Brooklyn Packers, as you mentioned, is a Black and brown-led, worker-owned cooperative. For some of the people that don't understand what a worker-owned cooperative means, the workers own the company and they share in the profits of the company. We believe in creating systems of ownership. If we do the work, we should be paid the profits and we should share that with all the people that do that work.

Brooklyn Packers has been instrumental in assisting the mutual aid groups across Brooklyn with a resource of a grocery alternative shopping, allowing the dollars that they've raised to stretch for their communities and ways for them to feed more people and to provide more resources. We've worked with mutual aid groups, non-profit organizations, for-profit organizations as well. We're working actively on creating a community model where our neighbors can no longer have to go to the grocery store and pay an excessive amount of money because we don't control the supply chain.

We want to be able to control the supply chain and shorten that food supply chain. We're spending a lot less than those grocery stores. We're creating a model where our neighbors can order groceries for home delivery and their contact lists for a much lower price than they would at the grocery store. We're making sure that the staples are available, a couple of add-ons. Each of those bags goes back into the community because we're putting someone from the community to work. As a community model, the community is taking care of itself. We're making sure that our neighbors and our friends have a part in what we are building.

Brian: What's in a grocery box and how much does it cost?

Kelvin: It's a $35 grocery box. In that box, we try to create all the staples. There's apples. There's carrots, potatoes, onions, collard greens, spinach, rice, dried beans, pasta, scallions, eggs, cooking oil, flour, butter, oranges, chicken, and pasta sauce. The bag is a $40 cost. We have additional items that you can add on such as orange juice, 2% milk lactate, almond milk, apple juice, bread, white bread, whole wheat bread, oats, and sugar. Again, part of those proceeds go back into the community. We can create jobs and we can feed ourselves.

Brian: Now, the city says anyone who wants a food box can get one for free by calling 311 through their expanded GetFoodNYC program. Does that make some mutual aid work redundant? Why should somebody pay $35 for one of these boxes rather than whatever it is the city is offering for free?

Kelvin: Well, because that's just it. It's whatever it is that they have that they offer us for free. We want to be able to control what we are eating and what we're distributing in our communities. Those boxes are great. They provide up to nine meals for a family, but they don't contain the things that our neighbors like or the things that we would eat on a consistent basis. There's only so much that you could eat of oats and rice and all we have that in here as well. We want to make sure that there's a lot of fresh produce. We want to make sure that we can provide things like chicken and flour and cooking oil for our neighbors to be able to prepare full meals.

In the city, a lot of those programs are limited time. We packed for the GetFoodNYC program and we were doing 1,000 boxes a day for them. That program slowly started to phase away because the city felt that there was no longer a need for them to continue that program. Brooklyn Packers was very instrumental in that. Like I said, we did 1,000 boxes a day for the last six months. That program phased out at the end of October. Many of our neighbors are no longer being supported by that.

Brian: Evie in Astoria, you're on WNYC. Hi, Evie.

Evie: Hi, Brian, how are you?

Brian: Okay, thank you.

Evie: Actually, outside doing some mutual aid work right now with Astoria Mutual Aid.

Brian: Cool, what are you doing?

Kelvin: Hey, hello.

Brian: What are you doing, Evie?

Evie: Today, we're giving out prepared meals at Astoria Houses and also doing a pop-up food pantry in collaboration with some other mutual aid groups that have sprung out of Astoria Mutual Aid. We have been doing a range of things just like it was just described. I tell them everything from grocery boxes to free clothing opportunities and they're setting up shops for people to check outposts, picking up prescriptions for neighbors, doing all sorts of things these past eight months. We started in March.

Kelvin: Amazing.

Brian: What do you want to say about the whole project of mutual aid in 2020?

Evie: Well, I think it's really shown how important it is for people to step in when our government fails and how important it is to work to support our neighbors and recognize that we all have something to contribute. I think that's what I really appreciated about mutual aid is the fact that it is about solidarity. It's about working together and just making sure that everyone, no matter who they are, can live in dignity. It's really been, I think, a transformative experience for me and I think so many others who've been involved with Astoria Mutual Aid.

Brian: Evie, thank you so much for your work and for calling in. Let's go next to Nerv. Is it Nerv in Brooklyn? You're on WNYC. Hello.

Nerv: Hi, Brian. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I've always listened to your show on radio. One of the highlights of my day. I would love to really comment on the mutual aid networks around the city. It's really fascinating and I'm really proud of our friends in Ridgewood, in Bushwick area. We've been self-organizing mutual aid networks through a community center called Woodbine.

They've been doing this for many months now right at the beginning of the pandemic. They really want to highlight a few challenges that they're facing, specifically in terms of space. They needed a bigger space to actually store and collect the food that are being given to them and for them to sort it out and also pack and organize distribution systems every week, once a week on Wednesdays at Woodbine.

I think I also want to really highlight that these friends and community members are all volunteers. They really would benefit support not only from free food that they can be delivered to their space but also protection and also testing and PPEs if you can call it that because, obviously, they're doing a very important and essential service to our community that, unfortunately, city government and other institutions are failing to do so.

Brian: Nerv, thank you so much for your call. It's really interesting, Kelvin, how he puts that in such a broad context of it's not just delivering food to people who are hungry, but he sees it so broadly. Do you?

Kelvin: Yes, absolutely. For us, it was a lot of resources that we could have provided and a lot of people needed a lot of things, but we really wanted to focus on what was important in the immediate for our neighbors. We felt like our neighbors shouldn't have to choose whether to pay their rent or to put food on their tables. We took that worry away from them so they can focus on other things and really build their lives around this pandemic, which has taken so much from so many people,

Brian: In the spring, there was a lot of good media around mutual aid groups. There were many feel-good stories about communities helping communities and The Times, even on Fox News. I wonder whether you're ever frustrated by it. We can be so moved by the way people come together to overcome hardship that we lose sight, that many of these hardships shouldn't even exist. The government could offer more in subsidies, higher minimum wage, access to affordable health care, all these structural things. Do you ever feel like people are missing the point when they praise groups like yours?

Kelvin: Yes and no. I feel we've adopted a mindset that we are enough for our communities. We are enough to take care of the things that our basic needs. The pandemic has definitely shown that the government has the ability to do so, but they choose not to a lot of times. We've created systems to not rely on them. However, I do feel that with the resources that they have, that being given to us, we can create the systems that work for us. A blanket system or a blanket food security system for everyone just doesn't work.

Allow us the resources to put plans and put operations and infrastructures in place to do it ourselves. We don't need media and we don't need the press to ensure that our neighbors have food on their tables. We're doing a very great job at doing that without any of it. It's nice to be highlighted. It's nice to be talked about for the new species and more people can put eyes on what you're doing. All of those things are great, but it's about actually being in the communities and serving the people around us that need it. Everything else is just extra.

Brian: Sophie in Flatbush, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sophie. You work with mutual aid too?

Sophie: Oh my gosh. Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, my roommate and I, we originally started volunteering with Flatbush United Mutual Aid, which was happening in our neighborhood in Flatbush. That was an organization that was set up specifically to design to help with the food crisis. That was a really great experience because people in the community were actually able to put in requests for groceries that they use weekly, which was amazing, but that organization did close because it was just focused really for that specific crisis at that time.

We started volunteering for a mutual aid group that's working out of a Good Shepherd's church in Sunset Park. I just wanted to give a shout-out to a Good Shepherd's church in Sunset Park, which is doing an amazing work delivering hot meals and groceries. They're still looking for drivers. If anybody has a car, it's a great thing to do with two people with a roommate or a friend. We do have a meal and grocery deliveries twice a week.

Brian: Awesome. Sophie, thank you so much.

Kelvin: That's amazing.

Brian: We've got about 30 seconds left. Kelvin, can you name one thing that you have learned about your community that has surprised you through your mutual aid work?

Kelvin: Yes, I guess I can say that one thing would be, we have the resources. We have the skills, the talents, and the abilities to ensure that we are okay. I've definitely learned that there are some amazing folks, especially in my community and the communities that surround us, that really care about people. They put people first over money, over profits, over everything else. It warms my heart every single day to know that there are people that are taking responsibility for the people that live amongst them.

Brian: That is great.

Kelvin: I've learned that solidarity is a very strong and important thing.

Brian: Kelvin Taitt, co-founder of East Brooklyn Mutual Aid. Thank you for being a hero of community well-being in 2020.

Kelvin: Thank you, Brian. I would like to just shout out Brooklyn Packers. You can visit us at brooklynsupportedagriculture.com and eastbrooklynmutualaid.org or East Brooklyn Mutual Aid on Instagram.

Brian: Awesome. Our 2020 Community Well-Being series continues tomorrow with the leader of the group, We Run Brownsville.

Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.