It`s a wrap! Throughout July, we organized 4 events that served 5,248 individuals and 1,422 families with 28,470 pounds of food and a variety of hurricane preparedness and relief supplies and information.
If you`ve been following our work over the years, you know that we choose what, where, and how we distribute our resources with great intention. #JulySupply was no different. We are proud to have worked with @cultureaidnola to distribute, over time, intentional and informed Hurricane Kits to predominantly BIPOC families who are already food insecure. Doing it this way increased support for some of our neighbors who need it most – while decreasing the neighborhood disruption that larger one-time distributions can often create.
By the end of July, each family who stopped by every week had received a well-rounded Hurricane Kit that included:
🔸 Weekly fresh food and dry goods, including fun treats for kiddos
🔸 High quality power banks to charge phones and USB devices like fans, emergency radios, flashlights
🔸 Cool Kits, including a reusable thermal bag, instant ice packs, and instructions on how to keep medicine and breastmilk cold through a power outage or while evacuating (in Vietnamese, Spanish, English)
🔸 Waterproof Kits, including boot covers and heavy duty envelopes with a checklist of important documents/items to keep safe (Spanish, English)
🔸 COVID-19 supplies, including masks, face shields, at-home tests, hand sanitizer
🔸 Additional items to boost their Hurricane Kits, including 7-day candles, buckets, drawstring bags, bug spray, flashlights, whistles, water bottles, ponchos, liquid soap, first aid supplies
🔸 Fact-checked information, including IWW`s Hurricane Season Checklist and New Orleans Community Resource Guide, @nolaready’s hurricane guides (Spanish, English), and #ImagineMutualAid flyers to get folks plugged in before a storm hits
No barrier to access. No signups or IDs required. Thank you, Culture Aid NOLA for the opportunity to pair IWW`s lived and trained experience in disaster preparedness with CAN`s experience in food operations and distribution. This is what`s possible when we move with trust and act in solidarity.
Onwards!
