Hello Fellow Radical,

Last month, Food Not Bombs Sacramento received support from A Radical Guide's Mutual Aid General Fund. They prepare and share free vegan and vegetarian meals in public every week with no strings attached. No one has to qualify for meals; they are offered freely to all.

After receiving the Mutual Aid General Fund donation, organizers told us:
"Thank you so much—it means the world to us right now because we want to do a distribution every Sunday this month."

With Food Not Bombs Sacramento providing a consistent weekly food distribution, it provides and strengthens relationships, creates steady touchpoints with the community, and makes sure people don't go without.

Because of donor support, our community also raised over $800 for farmworker families facing eviction.

Image of Dr. Ann Lopez writing rental assistance checks. photo credit: Center for Farmworker Families  (Old photo used to protect people and locations)

With the help of ARG’s Farmworker Rental Assistance Program, The Center for Farmworker Families (CFF) assisted with rent checks on November 2.

Founder of CFF, Dr. Ann López shared: "Thanks so much for helping support farmworkers! Your donation is wonderful and SOOO needed!"

This is mutual aid as practice—meeting immediate needs while building the relationships that make liberation possible.

Why mutual aid matters for liberation

Mutual aid is how we build power together. Many of our societal systems keep people in crisis by design. When people are focused on survival, there’s not much bandwidth to organize against what's causing those crises. Mutual aid breaks that cycle.

When communities are able to meet immediate needs directly (such as food, rent, and care), people form meaningful relationships. Those relationships create space to ask bigger questions: Why do these needs keep happening? What systems are causing this?

That shared understanding enables communities to start coordinating their own solutions—not waiting for institutions to help, but instead organizing food distribution, housing support, and care networks from within.

Over time, these networks reduce our dependence on systems that harm us. We stop asking permission to take care of each other. We create our own infrastructure. The systems that once seemed necessary become less relevant because we're meeting our own needs in ways that can’t be taken away.

This is how mutual aid builds the conditions for liberation: by strengthening our ability to live and organize outside of societal systems built on domination. It's not a distant goal—it's practice happening now, in every meal shared and every eviction prevented.

Keeping these networks resourced

We've made it easier to fund mutual aid:

• Become a Monthly Supporter and help us direct resources directly to mutual aid organizers and communities.
• Employer Matching: Many workplaces offer a matching donation program. Check for the match option on any ARG donation form.
• Payroll giving: Donate automatically from your paycheck each month.

Every contribution keeps resources in community hands and reduces the hoops people have to jump through to survive. It’s a practical way to stand with organizers who are already feeding people, preventing evictions, and building the kind of shared infrastructure we’ll all need in the years ahead.