Our community network has supported many community requests from within our network. We grateful to help people get their basic needs met and support aspirational goals.
A garden as a
retreat for Mary
We did our first work day alongside Mary, preparing the site for her garden beds. Mary has a beautiful vision to have a peaceful space to retreat in the summer, and grow foods. She gets so much joy watching her seeds sprout and dreaming about the foods she will be able able to grow and share.
Your help is needed!
Have a camper to share or sell?
Alicia's kids love cucumbers and pork chops. She always asks if she can take a few more cucumbers when we have them in the mobile market. She often feels a little dizzy when she walks out to the street to make her choices from the market.
She learned a few months ago that she is dizzy because her lungs are mostly collapsed from asthma. She needs surgery, which is scheduled for May. In the meantime, she has to be connected to oxygen. Sometimes when she gets really dizzy, she falls. She has shown me where she has fallen at night trying to get up to the bathroom and put a hole in the door.
She texted me a few weeks ago and said her landlord would not be renewing her lease. They've decided to go another direction with the house. I don't know what direction they are going, but I can see all the little modest houses around her being flipped into high-end luxury airbnb style homes. She told me at the same time she said she couldn't breathe.
She has housing navigation services, but no homes are available. She was told by the school system to consider putting her children in a youth-only shelter. Can you imagine?
Well, neither can she. She said she was not going to be separated from her kids. I asked if she thought they could live in a camper until a more permanent home for her family could be found. She said they could.
I'm here asking--who has a camper they can share or sell?
Some of the ways we use the mutual aid fund
We connected with a young farmer of color just getting her start on growing good food and building community here in Henderson County. She let us know she was in search of shovels and a broadfork. Our community was able to support her with this equipment.
Our friend MK lost a limb last year. As she orients to life using a prosthetic and wheelchair, she has to learn to drive again. Adaptive driving lessons are expensive and no benefits help cover these costs. We raised over $600 for MK to take adaptive driving lessons to support her independence.
T needed to be able to monitor her blood pressure, so we provided this equipment which helps her to prevent a recurring heart attack along with the other things she is doing to improve her heart health and reduce stress.
M experienced a stressful and uncomfortable third trimester of pregnancy. Our community came together to support her with yoga balls, pregnancy pillows, new clothes for the baby, a pregnancy support band to reduce back pain, and a thermometer when the baby was sick.
We are often asked for support with electricity bills, heating bills, firewood, and heaters. While we don't have funds to pay large electrical bills we have been able to fill the gap when other assistance wasn't quite enough.
Our friend C lost her phone one day, which is critical for her as a person without a car living in a rural area. She has no one way to contact transportation services her health care provider or emergency services without her phone.
We were able to purchase a phone for C using mutual aid funds.
We regularly have folks ask us for help with pet food. We provide pet food on a monthly basis for one family and for other families when we have some donated to us.
If you would like to donate cat or dog food to share with families, we can accept those donations at 616 Crystal Drive.
M, her 2 children, and dog became unhoused in the face of violence and ended up sleeping in their car in a campground. The Caja community showed up with camping gear and financial support for the family. Through donations we were able to support a few nights of a hotel stay to get the family out of heavy rains, too.