Crystal Huff

I’ve heard a lot of folks asking what they can do to help right now (what with the stuff going on and, well, gesturing widely at the all of the everything). Thank you, folks.

I want to put in a word for “the thing you CAN do to help, without burning out, is the thing we’d love to have you do.” I’m saying this to everyone who hears me, so I’m also posting this to my blog for the folks who read me here sometimes.

I’ve spent a ton of time and effort and (when I’ve had it) money on helping address food insecurity in Somerville, particularly the past ~5 years.

• When I’ve had money, I’ve donated to Greater Boston Food Bank because I know they use it well and help people who need it tremendously.
• When I’ve had time, I’ve run around at the end of farmers’ markets with friends and collected food (sometimes 3x/week) before it got taken back to the farm to be composted — instead, we took the day’s haul to the community fridges and cleaned the fridges along the way whenever we could.
• When I’ve had effort to spare, I’ve made bushels of fruits and veggies into pickles, canned roasted tomatoes, applesauce, hot sauce, and other stuff. Once shelf-stable (if possible), I’ve then carted those over to the community fridges along with the farmers’ market produce.

I also spend buttloads of time and effort on working groups within MAMAS (Mutual Aid Medford And Somerville), most particularly the gardening collective/food solidarity working group. Highly recommended. Mutual aid is the idea that everyone has something to offer and everyone has things they need, and we are a more resilient, stronger community when we share together. Mutual aid is great, mutual aid is super important, and mutual aid has definitely saved my life.

The best help is the help you can provide without burning out, though. One volunteer’s job last year was to go through and check documentation of what farmers’ markets were happening when and making sure there was a “crew chief” or “point person” in charge of getting stuff at those markets. I have a friend who organized our google docs and helped send out the tax deduction letter instructions for farmers who regularly donated food to the fridges. That’s totally a thing that someone does that helps! There are lots of small, manageable tasks one can do to help our community. Every phone call made for the MAMAS hotline, every apple shared at the community fridge, every info post translated into another language in order to be shared more widely — these are tasks that make the difference for someone. There are lots of manageable tasks one can do to help.

The best help, though, is the help you can do without burning out. 🙂 I stepped back from my reg community fridge shifts this year when my class schedule got more intense (plus I had some frustrations to express about accessibility of the fridges). Having had time away to get school stuff done (and having given and received apologies), I’m less crispy-fried and can help again. I was not fun to volunteer with for a few weeks, though, and my team suffered because of it. That’s also why I’m reiterating the don’t-burn-out part.

We are all in this together. Honest. Especially at the local level. Do what we can, when we can. Try not to burn out while doing it, too.