In Durham, North Carolina, a multifaceted mutual aid collective shows us the power of a community caring for its members through food and much more.
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In Durham, North Carolina, a multifaceted mutual aid collective shows us the power of a community caring for its members through food and much more.
March 12, 2025
Katina Parker taste-testing Feed Durham’s very first batch of chicken, smoked overnight, at the first cookout in April 2020. Since then, the Black, Native, and LGBTQ+-led collective has been washing, chopping, seasoning, smoking, griddling, and stewing to nurture and strengthen tens of thousands of neighbors—and themselves too. (Photo credit: Erin Bell)
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I’ve fed 180,000 people from my front yard over the last five years. With more hands, more equipment, and more money, we can feed millions in even shorter time.
Back in 2020, I formed a mutual aid collective called Feed Durham to address rising hunger due to the impacts of COVID. We started “small,” cooking for 750 people on two whole-hog smokers and a couple of industrial griddles. We rented four fridges and posted them on my porches. In the months following the murder of George Floyd, we ballooned into cooking for 1,500 to 2,000 people per cookout over the course of three to four days, adding burners, steam pots, and more cooking surfaces.
“Mutual aid is a network of expansive relationships that you nurture and are nurtured by in the direction of your deepest hopes and dreams.”
Through dozens of community partnerships and donations, we feed elders, people living in cars and on the streets, widows, unsupported LGBTQ+ folks, undocumented families, the homebound and chronically ill, and elementary school students and their families, all at no charge. We are a multi-faith, multi-racial, and intergenerational mutual aid collective. We believe we are only as safe as our least hungry neighbor.
Once folks got vaccinated, and volunteers were no longer available for multi-day cookouts, we shifted to primarily hosting produce giveaways, which quickly expanded to include other items. These days, Feed Durham moves about 20,000 pounds of mostly donated food, seeds, plant starts, and household goods per month from local businesses and distributors, including Happy Dirt, Cocoa Cinnamon/Little Waves Coffee Roasters, Red Tail Grains, Maple Spring Gardens, Bulldega Urban Market, Flying Pierogi Delicatessen, Big Spoon Roasters, Ninth Street Bakery, The ReCollective, and Gaia Herbs.
We’re proud to offer every herb, fruit, and vegetable ever known, from the common sweet potato to the not-so-common kiwi berry. We prioritize fresh, organic whole foods and supplements.
Over the years, we’ve hosted two dozen cookouts and 60 giveaways, two Repair Clinics, a free photo shoot for unhoused neighbors who were able to leave with a framed photo, and a multimedia installation called “Lovingly Prepared By” at the Durham Arts Council.
Mutual aid is a network of expansive relationships that you nurture and are nurtured by in the direction of your deepest hopes and dreams. It’s not just getting by—it’s flourishing, even if you don’t have a lot of material resources, because you feel loved, seen, and supported. Historically, mutual aid has worked best amongst rural people living in geographic isolation and with a shared spiritual practice for at least one generation, and people with shared identities who have been cast out from the mainstream.
The triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement were undergirded by the vast multi-generational mutual aid networks that Black folks used to sustain one another during slavery and Jim Crow. Those networks are still sustaining people like me, whose elder family members and ancestors practiced many forms of life-giving community care.
With that, I must share what mutual aid is not. Lately, I see a younger generation that regrettably didn’t receive much mentorship from adults, calling what they do “mutual aid” because they move resources from restaurants and grocery stores into the community. Most have never experienced mutual aid.
I have found that many are more excited about realizing their power alongside other organizers their age than they are about building intergenerational relationships and power with the people they purport to help. They ignore basic input from the communities they “serve” about food quality and safety, and they rarely acknowledge or address other needs.
Recipients are tasked with piecing together a variety of offerings in settings that are often unfriendly. This is altruistic capitalism. Charity. Colonialism. Clique-driven organizing that shuts out valuable input. Not mutual aid.
For 2025, Feed Durham is focused on supporting neighbors who want to grow food for one another. We are developing lo-fi tech solutions to bridge gaps between available household and food supplies and the people who need them. We are also liberating resources that lie dormant in warehouses and closets, soliciting these materials on behalf of under-resourced Black and Brown organizations and individuals who want to provide for their neighbors. We are serving as a networking hub for Durham’s vibrant organizing community and, of course, continuing to cook tasty, nutrient-dense meals for our neighbors.
To survive what’s coming, we are launching and sustaining a national mutual aid network to facilitate rapid response. Toward that end, we are sharing Feed Durham’s blueprints with a broad spectrum of mutual aid organizations throughout the U.S. Please borrow liberally. Share freely. And remember to practice care—and joy—during the hard times.
Caleb, a Feed Durham steward who showed up on the very first day of our very first cookout in April 2020, can normally be found doing exactly what he’s doing in the photo above: prepping chicken to go on the smokers. We cook about 800 pounds of chicken at every cookout.
Caleb leads a small team of three to five volunteers in washing and seasoning several cases per night. We follow Black and Native practices, using all parts of an animal or plant across multiple dishes. We pay tribute to the animals and plants that die to nourish our bodies with spices, loving energy, and food-preparation processes that accentuate natural flavor. When the chicken comes off the smoker, the drippings will be poured into large spice containers that we send out to missions and churches to use as pot liquor for soups. We jokingly but reverentially refer to the marinade we make for the chicken as a “spiritual bath.” (Photo credit: Katina Parker)
A Feed Durham steward, Grayson spent two years learning to cook on giant 60- and 80-quart steam pots. They burned many beans, and even more rice, until they figured it out. Now, Grayson makes some of the best cabbage, pinto beans, vegan mashed potatoes, and Feed Durham’s Everything But the Kitchen Sink Stew. Remember when we said use all parts of the plants and animals we cook? Veggie scraps like broccoli cores and kale stems get cooked down into a tasty bouillon. We cook on 10 burners. Feed Durham can churn out food for thousands, just with our steam pot setup. (Photo credit: Katina Parker)
At the end of each cookout, we make family-size plates for volunteers, representing the bounty of every recipe we lovingly prepare. We call them Beauty Plates. This plate features smoked chicken, braised carrot steaks, grilled butternut squash, smoked-garlic Brussels sprouts, charred broccoli, smashed yams, caramelized carrots, and Roasted Beets Tropicale. We’ve developed a way to cook beets that removes the “clean dirt” taste.
Our kitchen has always been gluten-free and soy-free. Most of our dishes are now dairy-free. The only meat we cook is poultry. We feed our unhoused and low-income neighbors the way we like to eat, and we set a high bar for the quality of food our volunteers offer, so that they will raise the standards in other community settings where they serve. (Photo credit: Katina Parker)
Feed Durham has become a fixture at Bull City Pride. In 2021, when the U.S. was still in shutdown, Feed Durham cooked for 1,000 and served food at Pride: Durham, NC. That year, there were two vendors—us and Durham County. They set up a tent to test folks for sexually transmitted infections and COVID.
This volunteer, carrying a handwritten Feed Durham menu, is one of several who traveled in from Richmond, Virginia, to study with us as a part of our residency program, which has hosted overnight volunteers from Chicago, Baltimore, Charlotte, and Atlanta. (Photo credit: Katina Parker)
Once vaccines became widely available, Feed Durham experienced a significant decline in volunteers. People were forced to return to work before it felt safe to do so, and other folks were eager to visit faraway places to see family and to vacation. So we shifted mainly to produce giveaways.
The food pictured was given away at the Scrap Exchange’s 2024 Earth Day celebration, where Feed Durham hosted a food giveaway and Repair Clinic to fix broken household goods. For the event, we partnered with Farm Church, whose pastor/master gardener fielded endless gardening questions with grace and patience while giving away seeds, plant starts, and oak saplings donated by a community member. (Photo credit: Katina Parker; subject arrangement: Dare Coulter)
My yard operates at full tilt during Feed Durham’s Annual Thanksgiving Grocery Giveaway. A volunteer writes out the daily schedule to keep us on track, above left, while dozens of volunteers break down every single box of donated vegetables, eggs, breads, and spices, distributing the cherished ingredients across hundreds of bags. Bags contain cabbage, kale, collards, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, onions, squash, spices, bread from Ninth Street Bakery, and free-range eggs, among other things. The Saturday before Thanksgiving, our community partners pull into the driveway at scheduled intervals to receive the packed bags and deliver them to hundreds of households. (Photo credits: Katina Parker)
In 2020, Feed Durham volunteers installed eight raised garden beds in my backyard that volunteers help tend. Those beds have grown tomatoes, radishes, quirky carrots with lots of obvious personality, loads of parsley, rosemary, sage, broccoli, cauliflower, collards, and more. In this photo, volunteers harvest fresh herbs right before heading to a produce giveaway. (Photo credit: Katina Parker)
One of dozens of community partners through whom Feed Durham distributes food, Mr. Glenn supports a group of elders and a blind community. Whenever Feed Durham receives texts or emails offering food for pickup, a flurry of texts go out to partners describing what’s available, plus retrieval details. Fun fact: The very cool Coca-Cola truck in the photo happens to have a hydraulic lift that makes hefting boxes in and out of the truck bed easier. (Photo credit: Katina Parker)
In 2023, we hosted our first ever Repair Clinic at The Scrap Exchange, a reuse center located in the Lakewood neighborhood close to downtown. We recruited volunteers who sew, weld, repair electronics, and practice carpentry to teach volunteers and neighbors with damaged items how to fix their items. Dozens of community members brought in vacuums, beloved articles of clothing, lamps, furniture, etc. After being repaired, the item can be kept by its owner or donated.
We began offering Repair Clinics to teach tactile skillsets that are rarely taught in school any more, to divert from landfill, and to help neighbors reduce their expenses. Here, volunteer Mark solders a lamp as the owner watches along with other volunteers. (Photo credit: Katina Parker)
We send Love Notes with each cooked meal or grocery bag. We started this practice during the pandemic, at a time when we all felt isolated and shut off from the world. On printed card stock donated by Spee Dee Que, a local independent print house, teachers, students, and other community members craft notes for their neighbors. Gifted artists create astoundingly beautiful missives. Some messages are general; others are themed for certain holidays, including Pride.
We do have message requirements—no gaslighting, no overpromising, and no weird toxic positivity. We ask that folks write what they would want to hear if they were at home, newly widowed, or on the street in the cold with one sock, not two. Because a well-meaning message like “I love you” or “You’re awesome” can feel thoughtless or boundary-crossing to a person living on the street, we suggest encouraging words like “Sending kind thoughts your way” or most simply “Enjoy your meal.” In addition to the great-tasting food, our neighbors have come to look forward to receiving custom blessings and artwork. (Photo credit: Katina Parker)
Illustration by Nhatt Nichols
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Civil Eats equals Good Reads!!!
I'd love to see a follow-up article with more of the logistics around how these programs can work. Thanks for an inspiring article!