You’ve seen the headlines. SNAP benefits slashed. Food prices still climbing. Families who were barely making it now can’t make it at all. And maybe you’ve felt it yourself—the squeeze, the anxiety, the impossible math of trying to feed your people on too little money.
Government programs have waiting lists. Food banks run out. Traditional charities have bureaucracy, paperwork, income verification, and rules about how often you can come back. And even when you navigate all of that, you’re still hungry today.
This is where mutual aid comes in. And here’s something the traditional aid system has overlooked for too long: moms have been doing mutual aid forever. We’ve been organizing carpools, coordinating meal trains for new parents, splitting Costco runs, and showing up with casseroles when neighbors are struggling. We’re already experts at the logistical gymnastics of keeping everyone fed, the emotional labor of checking in on people, and the multitasking magic of coordinating community care while managing our own chaos.
The difference now is that we’re formalizing it. We’re building networks that operate outside the systems that keep failing us. We’re using those same skills—the planning, the delegating, the fierce determination to make sure everyone eats—and scaling them up to take care of our communities.
Because here’s what we know that the bureaucrats don’t: taking care of each other isn’t just charity. It’s how we build power. When we feed our neighbors, we’re not just solving hunger. We’re creating networks of trust and reciprocity. We’re showing our kids what solidarity looks like. We’re proving that we don’t need permission from institutions to take care of our own.
This is the matriarchy in action. Not waiting for someone else to fix things. Not accepting that some people deserve to eat and others don’t. Just women and mothers doing what we’ve always done—making sure everyone gets fed—but doing it louder, bigger, and more unapologetically.
This guide will teach you how to find existing mutual aid networks in your area, how to a mutual aid network if there isn’t one, and how to build something sustainable that actually feeds people without all the barriers traditional programs put up.
What Is mutual aid, really?
The key difference from traditional charity: mutual aid is reciprocal, not hierarchical. There’s no “helper” and “helped”—just community members supporting each other. No income verification, no paperwork proving you’re deserving, no limits on how often you can come back. Everyone gives what they can and takes what they need.
In practice, this looks like regular food shares where neighbors bring extras and take what’s needed, community fridges accessible 24/7, meal trains, bulk buying co-ops that pool resources for wholesale prices, garden shares, and skill swaps around cooking and preserving food.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because mothers have been doing versions of this forever. We’ve just been calling it “being neighborly” or “helping out.” Now we’re calling it what it is: mutual aid. And we’re building it intentionally.
Mutual aid through history
Mutual aid isn’t new—it’s how communities have survived for centuries when institutions failed them. The Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program in the 1960s fed over 20,000 children daily across dozens of cities, run largely by mothers and volunteers who understood that feeding kids is political work. Their program was so effective it inspired today’s federal school breakfast program.
During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, when the government responded with cruel indifference, LGBTQ+ communities organized networks like God’s Love We Deliver, often led by lesbian feminists and mothers who delivered meals to people too sick to cook and too stigmatized to access traditional services.
Immigrant communities throughout the 1800s and 1900s created mutual aid societies where women pooled resources to ensure families had food, with groups like the Hebrew Free Loan Society and Mexican mutualistas operating on the principle: we take care of our own because no one else will.
Right now, mutual aid is experiencing a resurgence. One Love Community Fridge operates community fridges across New York City with 24/7 access and no questions asked.
Mutual Aid Los Angeles coordinates a variety of projects including a free weekly farmer’s market and hygiene kit building and distribution. The Okra Project brings home-cooked meals to Black trans communities, centering the people most marginalized by existing systems.
Community fridges have sprouted from Atlanta to Portland, often started by young women who simply saw a need and acted—no nonprofit status, no grants, just a fridge, some volunteers, and a community willing to use it. These networks succeed precisely because they reject the bureaucracy and gatekeeping of traditional aid. You’re not inventing something new when you start a mutual aid network—you’re joining a long tradition of people, especially women and mothers, who refused to accept that anyone should go hungry.
Finding existing networks
Before starting something new, see what already exists. Search social media for “[your city/neighborhood] mutual aid” on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Check mutualaidhub.org for a searchable database. Look for brightly painted community fridges near busy intersections. Ask at community centers, libraries, and food banks. Check bulletin boards at coffee shops and laundromats.
Once you find a group, join their online space, introduce yourself, show up to an event, and participate however you can. Most groups won’t ask about your income or situation and understand you might need to receive before you can give.
How to start a mutual aid network
If nothing exists in your area, you can start something. It doesn’t have to be big or fancy.
Identify your community
Think about the smallest circle you can manage. Your apartment building, your block, your neighborhood. Or think about communities of connection—parents at your kid’s school, your workplace, your faith community. Five households sharing extra food is mutual aid. You don’t need 100 people.
Find your core people
Talk to neighbors you know. Post in neighborhood groups. Put up flyers. Look for people who care about community and have some time to contribute. You need three to five people to start.
Have a first meeting where you share the vision, discuss community needs, brainstorm what you could do, decide on one small thing to start with, and set your next meeting date.
Choose your model
There are several proven approaches to food mutual aid. Pick what works for your community and your capacity.
- The Simple Food Share is the easiest starting point. Meet weekly or monthly at a consistent time and place—someone’s yard, a park, a community center, a parking lot. Everyone brings what they can. Display everything on tables or blankets. Everyone takes what they need. No tracking. Pick a schedule, create a flyer, spread the word, and show up. This works beautifully for small neighborhoods.
- Community Fridges place a refrigerator in an accessible outdoor location with electricity. The community stocks it with fresh food. Anyone can take what they need, anytime. Volunteers check daily to remove spoiled food and do weekly deep cleans. You’ll need a donated or secondhand fridge, permission from the property owner, weatherproof covering, and clear signage. Paint it brightly: “Free food, take what you need, leave what you can.” This thrives in urban areas with foot traffic. Good Samaritan laws protect you from liability in most states—just get property owner permission and check local health department rules.
- Meal Trains work well for smaller groups who know each other. Each household cooks one meal per week or month for multiple families. Use a shared calendar, survey dietary needs, and establish simple guidelines. Five households could each cook once weekly and receive four meals from others. Each household pays for ingredients once and gets time and energy back the rest of the week.
- Bulk Buying Co-ops let groups pool money for wholesale prices. Ten to twenty households each contribute $20-50 monthly. Someone manages orders, places bulk orders at Costco or Restaurant Depot, picks everything up, and distributes proportionally. This requires transparent money management but dramatically stretches budgets.
- Little Free Pantries are weatherproof boxes stocked with non-perishables, accessible 24/7. Install one in your yard or another accessible location, stock it, check weekly for expired items, and let people take what they need. Perfect for individual households willing to host something simple.
- Garden Share Networks connect people with surplus produce to people who need fresh food. Create an online group where gardeners post extras, people request what they need, and you coordinate pickups. Most active in summer and fall.
The practical details
Choose your communication platform based on your community. Facebook groups work well for announcements and are easy for most people. WhatsApp or Signal provide better privacy for real-time coordination. Discord works for larger groups with different channels. Email lists reach people not on social media. And always use flyers—not everyone is online. Combine digital and physical communication for maximum reach.
Also, location matters. Choose somewhere accessible by transit, physically accessible, safe and well-lit. Get permission from property owners and check if you need permits for public spaces. Timing matters too—consistency is key. Pick the same day and time each week or month so people know when to expect you. Evenings or weekends work better for working people.
Most states have Good Samaritan laws protecting food donors from liability. For informal mutual aid, you typically don’t need insurance. Thousands of networks operate without formal legal structure using common sense about food safety.
Building participation
Post in neighborhood Facebook groups and Nextdoor. Use local Reddit and email lists. Put flyers everywhere—laundromats, libraries, community centers, bus stops. Tell everyone you know. Ask schools to share with families.
Your messaging should be clear: what you’re doing, when and where, how people can participate, and that there are no barriers. Simple flyer: “Community Food Share. Every 2nd Saturday, 10am-noon. [Location]. Bring food to share if you can. Take food you need. No questions asked. Everyone welcome.”
Make it genuinely welcoming with no gatekeeping. No income verification, no sign-up requirements, no limits on what people take. Trust people to know their needs. If supplies run low, ask for more donations rather than restricting access.
Display food nicely. Treat everyone with respect. Reject any savior mentality. Be culturally sensitive with diverse foods and, if relevant, multilingual signage.
Sustaining the Work
Distribute work across your team. Rotate roles. Build a team, not a hero. Set boundaries—it’s okay to say your scope is food and connect people to other resources. Keep systems simple and change what isn’t working.
Celebrate wins. Take photos with permission, share stories with consent, and remember you’re making a real difference.
Most mutual aid operates without formal funding, but if you need money for supplies, pass the hat at distributions, use Venmo with transparent accounting, hold small fundraisers, or ask local businesses for donations. You probably don’t need to become a nonprofit—at least not at first. Mutual aid’s strength is its informality.
For food safety, use common sense. Check expiration dates, inspect everything, throw out anything questionable, keep hot food hot and cold food cold. For community fridges, do daily checks and weekly deep cleans. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Dealing with challenges
What if people take too much? This rarely happens. If supply becomes an issue, focus on getting more food rather than restricting access. What if the same people come every time and never bring anything? That’s okay. That’s the point. Mutual aid isn’t transactional. What if you run out of food? Ask for more donations, connect with food banks to supplement, adjust frequency if needed. What if this feels overwhelming? Start smaller, ask for help, take breaks.
Connecting to bigger change
Mutual aid isn’t just about immediate needs—it’s about building a different kind of world. While you’re feeding people, talk about why this is necessary. Connect the dots between SNAP cuts, low wages, and high costs. Encourage people to contact their representatives. Share information about voting and organizing efforts.
When people practice mutual aid, they learn they can solve problems together without waiting for government or charities. They learn their community is strong and they have power. This builds capacity for other organizing—tenant unions, labor efforts, political campaigns. Your food network might naturally link with housing support, childcare cooperatives, tool libraries, skill shares, community gardens, and transportation networks.
Document what you’re doing and share it. Take photos with permission, write about what you’re learning, share your model so others can replicate it.
The power of women taking charge
There’s a reason mutual aid networks so often have women and mothers at the center. We’ve been trained by necessity to be logistical wizards—coordinating schedules, managing limited resources, anticipating needs, delegating tasks, and keeping multiple systems running simultaneously. We know how to stretch a dollar, how to make something out of nothing, and how to get people fed even when it seems impossible.
But more than that, we understand something fundamental about care work: it’s not individual, it’s collective. For generations, mothers have been told that feeding our families is our private responsibility, our individual burden. But we’ve always known that’s bullshit. We’ve always helped each other. We’ve always shared. We’ve always known that when one family is struggling, we’re all struggling.
Mutual aid is what happens when we stop pretending that care work is individual and start organizing it collectively. It’s what happens when we take the skills we’ve honed in our own homes and scale them up to care for our whole community. It’s the matriarchy saying: nobody in our neighborhood goes hungry. Period.
And when we do this work, we’re not just feeding people. We’re modeling for our kids what it looks like to take care of each other. We’re showing them that when systems fail, communities can step up. We’re teaching them that people matter more than rules, that sharing is strength, and that they’re part of something bigger than themselves.
This is powerful work. This is political work. This is mothers refusing to accept a world that treats feeding people as a privilege instead of a right. And it’s working—all across the country, women are building networks that are keeping their communities fed.
Your first steps
Spend a few days researching existing mutual aid in your area and deciding which model might work. Identify three to five people you could ask to help. Reach out and schedule your first meeting. Get together and discuss needs, vision, and your chosen model. Make a specific plan for your first event and assign tasks.
Set a date for your first food share. Create a simple flyer and start spreading the word. Confirm your location, gather supplies, and promote. Then show up early, welcome everyone warmly, make it happen, and debrief afterward with your team.
It won’t be perfect. Your first food share might be five people and a few bags of rice. That’s okay. That’s five people who ate. Start small, learn, adjust, and grow.
The bigger picture
Mutual aid food networks are sprouting up everywhere right now because people are hungry and systems are failing. But they’re also sprouting up because people—especially mothers—are realizing something powerful: we don’t have to wait for someone to save us. We can save each other.
Every time someone takes food from a community fridge without having to prove they’re deserving, that’s a small revolution against a system that demands people debase themselves to eat. Every time a neighborhood shares a meal together, that’s a small revolution against isolation and individualism. Every time people pool resources to buy food in bulk, that’s a small revolution against an economy that punishes poverty.
Mutual aid isn’t just about meeting immediate needs. It’s about building the muscles of community care. It’s practice for a different kind of world. A world where mothers don’t have to choose between feeding their kids and paying rent. A world where caring for each other is the foundation. A world where the work that women have always done—the feeding, the organizing, the connecting—is valued as the essential political work it is.
You don’t have to start a big network. You can start with your building, your block, five families. That’s enough. That’s revolutionary.
So start small. Start messy. Start imperfect. But start. Your community is waiting. And they’re hungry—not just for food, but for connection, solidarity, and the knowledge that they’re not alone.
You can give them that. Not by yourself, but together. That’s what mutual aid is. That’s what mothers do. We feed people. We organize. We make sure everyone’s taken care of. And we don’t ask permission to do it.
Welcome to the matriarchy. Let’s get to work.