Building Stronger Communities Through Food Mutual Aid | Civil Eats

Building Stronger Communities Through Food Mutual Aid

At our Civil Eats virtual salon, food mutual aid organizers discussed the vital role of community networks in meeting food needs—and much more.

By The Civil Eats Editors

March 20, 2025

Civil Eats Editorial Director Margo True, Feed Durham founder Katina Parker, and Yasmin Ruiz, food justice co-organizer at Chicago’s Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.

Civil Eats Editorial Director Margo True, Feed Durham founder Katina Parker, and Yasmin Ruiz, food justice co-organizer at Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.

Last week, we welcomed Civil Eats members and the public to a thought-provoking and inspiring discussion on how to create and sustain food mutual aid. Our salons are usually for members only, but we felt that this inherently generous topic deserved to be shared with all interested listeners, particularly at a time when many of us might be supporting mutual aid in our communities.

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Who Spoke: The event was kicked off by Civil Eats Membership Manager Kalisha Bass, with a welcome from Executive Director Naomi Starkman.

Editorial Director Margo True moderated our conversation with Katina Parker, a filmmaker and founder of Feed Durham in North Carolina, and Yasmin Ruiz, food justice co-organizer at Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) in Chicago.

Feed Durham is a multifaceted program that feeds hundreds of people at a time and includes produce giveaways, clothing distributions, and repair clinics. LVEJO was founded 30 years ago to fight environmental injustice in the neighborhood, has now expanded into several different food mutual aid projects.

The Overview: The conversation centered around what true community care looks like, based not on charity but on reciprocity, and how people can care for one another during difficult times. The audience included people from across the U.S., many of whom work on farms, garden programs, and food access issues. They contributed a lively stream of chats during the discussion.

Many audience members were already working to feed people in their communities, and a few were encouraged by Parker to start new local projects such as community gardens to feed more people in need. By the time the salon ended, there was a palpable energy for change in the audience, with listeners vowing to connect with one another and the speakers after the session.

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Nuggets From the Conversation

What Is Food Mutual Aid?

Katina Parker emphasized that mutual aid is not about traditional power structures, but about shared responsibility and collective survival, as it was in her family and community: “Growing up, there were a lot of kids, and we never went hungry. . . . Surviving wasn’t just about sharing food, it was about knowing one another. It’s what Dr. King called ‘service.’ There’s a difference between service and volunteerism. Service is something that is built into our lives, it’s a way of being, it’s a lifestyle–and volunteerism is something you pencil in on a Saturday.”
Yasmin Ruiz of LVEJO defined mutual aid as “solidarity, as opposed to charity,” fostering empowerment and reciprocal relationships. “It’s not just you being on the receiving end, but giving back. It gives a sense of empowerment to people in the community, [and] allows us to take direct action to immediate needs we see.”

Tips for Sustaining a Food Mutual Aid Community

Learn from elders, Indigenous communities, and immigrants. Elders are a trove of expertise, and immigrants (who are sometimes also Indigenous, as in the case of the Little Village neighborhood) hold knowledge from their homeland, including of agricultural practices.
People on the receiving end need to be involved. Parker emphasized learning from unhoused individuals to prepare for societal disruptions, potentially including how to live outside, how the land and soil work, knowledge about weather conditions, and beyond. “Learn things from people that are different from us, particularly people who are closer to the earth. Native folks, unhoused people, veterans—they know a lot about the land.”

Turning Challenges Into Opportunities

How to unite a group of people from disparate backgrounds into a true mutual aid community? Parker: “Unless you’re forging relationships across difference and really learning from one another, what you’re doing is what I would call ‘altruistic capitalism.’ What we need for what’s coming is to lean deeper into these relationships.”
Programs that once supported farmers, school food sourcing, and food banks are being cut, increasing reliance on mutual aid as available resources decrease. Ruiz noted LVEJO’s community gardens produced 8.2 tons of food last year, but the demand far exceeds supply. Continuing to build local partnerships is key.

Sources of Inspiration and Strength

Ruiz says it’s the relationships she forges with people in the community, and seeing how participating in mutual aid gives people agency and purpose. “A lot of people that have helped us are also people that have received produce and meals.”
For Parker, it’s often her family. “My faith and the memory of how I was raised, and how so many have looked out for me along the way. Many of them are still alive, in their 70s and their 80s now. I spend a lot of time talking with them . . . . Standing on those broad shoulders is definitely what keeps me in it, and an awareness that we need people to survive.”

Expanding Mutual Aid

Feed Durham is launching a national mutual aid network focused on rapid response and food access. “After four years of no rest, we have to find another gear and somehow dig deeper and be in the battle of our lives. . . .We have the best chance of getting the world that we’ve been fighting for right now, because things are so unstable and so unfamiliar.”

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Building Stronger Communities Through Food Mutual Aid