Who We Serve + How
All recipients are Queer / Transgender / Indigenous / People Of Color (QTIPOC) living in Chapel Hill, Carrboro or rural North Carolina. Many recipients do organizing work of their own. Some organize with us, but only if they want to. All recipients are under/unemployed due to Covid-19 and were not approved for the $600 weekly federal pandemic unemployment benefit. Most have never received a stimulus checks, and many face barriers or are not able to qualify for the stimulus or unemployment due to their non-filer / undocumented / formerly incarcerated status. And the bills just keep coming. So we send our recipients $-$$$ (depending on availability) to survive. Mostly through Paypal, Venmo and Cashapp. We figure out other ways when folks don't have bank accounts. Transfemmes + folks without safe shelter are first priority for receiving funds. All funds are given with zero strings attached. 

Who We Are
We are a rapid-response mutual aid initiative. We do not have 501c3 status or fiscal sponsorship. None of our organizers are paid for their work. So far, we have been approved for a $500 grant from the Campaign For Southern Equality, $500 from Southern Vision Alliance, and $10,000 from the Third Wave Fund. We are grateful to these organizations for funding autonomous groups like ours! Of the more than $46,000 we have distributed (or facilitated distribution of) since the pandemic hit, $34,000 was contributed by members of our beloved community <3 

Our Organizers
​Sharon P. Holland is an African-descended queer Elder who is a professor at UNC. They organized with ACT-UP in the 80’s during the AIDS crisis, and have supported anti-racist and anti-HB2 work here in Chapel Hill. Her approach to community building is inter-sectional and encompasses deep connection to this place and its people, as their grandfather was active in Durham Civil Rights in the early 50's and her mother, a UNC alum (‘61) was a plaintiff in the Blue school desegregation case. They came back to the Triangle to teach and to continue her family’s social justice legacy.

Bakari Roscoe is a young Black queer activist who organizes around food/housing justice and harm reduction, with a huge affinity toward diverting resources to community members fighting houseless-ness and substance use disorder. He co-founded The LGBTQ Pop-up Center of Carrboro + Carrboro’s Queer Family Dinner after the 2016 election. He does mutual aid work almost exclusively and has been handing out harm reduction supplies like Narcan /clean needles and getting food to those who need it in Chapel Hill since he was a teen.
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Our silent organizer is working class, white, and gender non-conforming. They are an independent grassroots activist who has worked collaboratively with orgs like SONG NC, Equality NC, BYP100, The LGBTQ Center Of Durham, TGI Justice Project (TGIJP), El Centro Hispano, and more. 

# This  Is  What  Community  Looks  Like