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From our cofounder Maurice Cook:

“It’s been one of those weeks. One of the longest weeks of my life. Since Tuesday I helped build the foundation of a hyper-localized bloc of organizers. The Ward 6 Mutual Aid Team (ward6mutualaid@gmail.com /hotline 202-683-9962) has utilized the model initiated by an amazing group of DC organizers who formed the DC Mutual Aid Network. This grassroots, community-led effort initiated by Black Lives Matter DC, No Justice No Pride, Black Swan Academy, BYP 100 and others formed in response to the inevitablity that our systems will not protect, support, or sustain the lives of poor, working class Black and Brown people here in Washington DC. No political candidate, local public official, charitable foundation, higher education institution, corporate mitigation fund, public health reps…...will do whatever is necessary to ensure that our people receive what is needed to live in dignity while facing this imminent castrophe. You know how I know? I didn’t see not nary not one representative of any of these people or institutions in our city’s Public Housing Projects located 12 blocks from the Capitol where money and supports are sliding out faster than $1 dollar bills in Vegas.

Workers are suffering. Hospitality workers, transportation workers, travel workers, retail workers, restaurant workers, factory workers, tourism workers, freelance workers, independent workers, small business workers, so many workers, too many workers. Everyone associated with the DC Mutual Aid Network are workers. All of us are workers. All of us are suffering.

The DC Mutual Aid Network is organizing Ward by Ward and have already helped thousands of residents across the city. We were so successful this week that at least two DC agencies called the various Ward specific hotline numbers. I personally received a call from one of them. I’m feeling too joyful and want to keep this post positive so I won’t name any names...tonight.

Serve Your City is serving as the network hub for our Ward 6 Mutual Aid Team connecting resources including food and supplies to the community-based, grassroots orgs and community leaders on the ground. Serve Your City had to cancel all of its programs this Spring. That means that Black and Brown children won’t learn how to row, swim, snorkel, scuba, play tennis, practice yoga, receive college prep and early career engagement. And I think everyone can imagine how much that hurts me. I’m going to channel that pain and use the very same skills I practice bringing resources to the kids we support to bringing resources to the kids and families we support. The organization is called, “Serve Your City” for a reason. I just never imagined that these skills would be necessary to mitigate the massive harm from something so powerfully devastating and destructive.

Serve Your City never works alone. It’s impossible to do what we do without the power of collectivism, unity, and a shared purpose and vision. We have the most powerful family of people, leaders, and organizations like AquariusVann-Ghasri, Beverly Smith, Frank Muhammed, Kareem, Amy Moore, Mommas Safe Haven, Brothas Huddle, the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, and others, playing a role in the supply chain. Fighting to make sure those without won’t have too long to wait for support. Managed and organized by a team of incredible people representing the Ward 6 Mutual Aid Team who were strangers on Monday but forever comrades from a previous life.

I connect people because I love to be connected to people. I have experienced the benefit of being connected to people and I’ve enjoyed the blessing of connecting people to others. I’ve known a secret that the Corona Virus is teaching and/or reinforcing for all of us. My wellbeing is connected to your wellbeing. The Corona Virus is the greatest manifestation of equality that I have ever seen. It cares nothing about your identity, your perceptions, your values, your beliefs, your dogmas, your weapons, or your wealth. The normative marginalization and oppression of people around the world may for the first time in my life, directly impact the perpertrators and beneficiaries. If you feel as if that is divisive or too political of a statement right now then please come with me tomorrow to Potomac Gardens and Hopkins Public Housing and we can discuss. As much as I want to be positive I can’t fight the necessity to be truthful. This is a Public Health Crisis of untold proportions and we DESPERATELY NEED PUBLIC HEALTH PROFESSIONALS ON THE GROUND WITH US AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. We need health practitioners to speak to the necessity of social distancing and help us, those that will risk our lives and those that we love to not have to live with doing nothing while others are suffering next door, down the street, around the corner, the next block, a few blocks away, down the road, and around the way.

I won’t do it and this week I surrounded myself with people who can’t do it either. We are determined to do whatever it takes to care for our people. It will take some tanks to stop us. But we are not in direct danger from the Military State at this moment, today. We are in danger from the State of Neglect of the poor, of the working class. IF YOU KNOW PUBLIC HEALTH ADVOCATES BOLD ENOUGH AND WILLING TO DO WHATEVER IT TAKES PLEASE GET IN TOUCH WITH ME.

We value the sharing of our space so much because sometimes it is the only thing of value we have. We need our bold health professionals to speak to the potential consequences from unsafe, social practices. Don’t judge, do something. Don’t point a finger, lift a finger and help us.

We need your help in many ways.

NEEDS:

DONATE-www.serveyourcitydc.org

Fruit and vegetables, bread, toilet paper, sandwich meat, snacks, bottled water, frozen meats, potates, rice, hot dogs, buns, bleach, wipes, alcohol, gloves, alcohol pads AND EVERY ITEM YOU PURCHASED FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILIES….All of us need the very same things to survive. So if you have it, we need it too!

Volunteer to transport
Volunteer for storage

And finally, I’m desperately afraid of the criminalization of Black and Brown youth because they have no to little means to continue to engage in their educational growth and development. In this crisis we are expected to normalize the ability for parents who struggle to survive to have enough capacity to facilitate the academic and social growth of their kids while isolated in place. And to top this off, in the last 30 years the resource gap has exploded a technology gap that ABSOLUTELY WILL PERPETUATE the criminalization of Black and Brown people. It is hard enough to live with the School to Prison Pipeline and now, just because of greed, we are facing a dramatic escalation of the Out of School to Prison Pipeline.

We urgently need laptops, tablets, workbooks, art books, activity books, AND A FREE, SUSTAINABLE WAY TO GAIN INTERNET ACCESS. We need great ideas to do this and we need to know all the things you’re doing if you have kids and you’re scrambling to do the best you can so that their development won’t slide and create hurdles almost impossible to fix.

This was an amazingly successful week of the People supporting the People. It will take all of us to keep up this momentum. Who knew the words in my tagline would catapult to an unescapable truth so soon, “It’s All of Us or None of Us!”

If you have questions on how you can help, email me mcook.serveyourcity@gmail.com and I'll forward it to our admin and comms teams.

Everyone take care of yourselves and your loved ones. I'm doing my best to do the same.

In Solidarity”