Resistance Resources

I’ve been sharing these topics throughout my Five Things posts, but I felt like I should compile them into one easy-to-find, referenceable location.

The only way we’re going to get through these times is by plugging in to our communities with whatever resources we have available to us and by working together. That mentality is at the heart of this post and if that’s somehow offensive to you, I gently suggest you look inward to reflect on why helping others is so upsetting.

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Protect / Build Community

ICE has no place in our country — they are essentially the Nazi Gestapo (or more accurately, slave snatchers 🥴) of our time and that entire government department should be dismantled.

A few things you can do if you notice an ICE presence in your area: be a Whistle Warrior. Keep a whistle on you at all times and learn the signals to alert others. Pass out printables and maybe even assemble & distribute whistle packs in your community!

Additionally, you can get trained to become a Legal Observer or join a local Rapid Response Team so that you can appropriately address an ICE raid and assist those being targeted.

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WAISN is a fantastic organization here in Washington State that provides a lot of assistance. Share their contact info for services offered or volunteer (/donate!) to help if you can.

Share the Immigrant Legal Resource Center with anyone who may need it (pass out their Red Cards with info, etc).

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Support Food Pantries

If you live local to the Seattle area and you are in a position to help, please donate to or volunteer with hopelink.org. They’re a great local resource if anyone you know is dealing with food insecurity — everyone deserves to eat and feed their families.

*If you live outside of the Seattle region you can utilize FoodFinder to locate your closest food pantries.

There are excellent organizations that are assisting food pantries and offering general support nationwide (such as Feeding America, No Kid Hungry, and Blessings in a Backpack) that are certainly worth donating to, but it’s the small, local groups that will be hit hardest… especially in the early days of SNAP benefits being unavailable so please prioritize local donations. Also, I ask that you consider giving a monetary donation as those go a LOT further than food donations (food pantries often buy in bulk and can receive discounts).

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In addition to the food resource, @kids.eat.in.color put together an “Affordable Flavors” cookbook especially for anyone in a food insecurity situation. There are lots of delicious, healthy meals with easy recipes the whole family will enjoy and grocery lists to help make your food go farther.

If you DM her on Instagram or comment “FLAVOR” on this post she’ll send you the link to the cookbook and then use code “FLAVOR” at checkout to receive this resource at no cost.

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Miscellaneous

If you happen to belong to a community garden or even grow produce at home / have chickens that lay eggs / etc. you can be a huge help to your community as well — gift or trade your items!

I stumbled across this list of 50 Ways to Create a Village in Your Zip Code by @fossilisedflowers and I absolutely loved the suggestions! I want to get even more involved in our community, but felt a little frozen on where to begin. I really appreciated this list of ideas to help point me in the right direction(s).

Offer to make grocery runs or any other kind of assistance your neighbors / community may need; many of them may be afraid to leave their homes for basic needs.

Ask your PTA if they need volunteers to help stand watch to make sure kids arrive to school / get home safely.

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Participate in boycotts / peaceful protests whenever possible.

Skip Amazon and do your purchasing via Shop Red Bag and / or Little Blue Cart.

Join the 50501 Movement to participate in peaceful resistance; make Good Trouble.

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5 Calls to help with contacting our legislators to urge them to vote the way we need them to.

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If you are able, I encourage you to donate to (or volunteer for) mutual aid funds both in your community AND in “hotspot” cities that are under siege.

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Media Consumption

While it’s important to stay informed about current events, humans were simply not meant to consume as much news as we do everyday. It’s information overload and I don’t know about you, but I often feel crushed by the constant onslaught of it all.

My friend Jess recently shared this post on her Substack and it really resonated with me. She discusses ways that she is creating a Media Consumption Plan similar to how she prepared for Postpartum and I really liked her approach; I definitely need to build in some “guardrails” for myself, especially as it pertains to social media.

I’ll admit that I’m guilty of feeling compelled to share others’ posts that reflect my thoughts and sentiments on my Instagram account. I don’t consider sharing those things to be “activism”, but moreso acknowledgement that everything is insane right now and it feels wrong to only share regular, daily life content as if everything is normal. However, even though sharing those posts certainly makes my position known, I don’t know if continuing to circulate the rage bait is actually helping anyone… so I’ve curtailed those posts.

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Living in a state of constant cortisol elevation is absolutely draining. We all need to protect our peace — it’s possible to be informed without spiraling. Minimize what you are consuming on social media, limit your news sources, decide when you want to consume that limited media and for how long.

I recommend Ground News and 1440 Daily Digest for aggregating news headlines to give you a “whole story” perspective.

As for me, I try not to open any media as soon as I wake up, but on my way home after school dropoff I like to listen to the 5 minute news recap from the Morning Announcements podcast. If you prefer, NPR also has their own daily news recap talking about the three biggest stories of the day. I find this method to be a much more gentle and digestible way to consume the news — it reminds me of life before the internet and information traveled much slower… when people simply read the newspaper every morning. 😉

If I want to get a little bit more information on a particular news item, I’ll check in with: @sharonsaysso (The Preamble newsletter), @meidastouch (Substack), @aaronparnas (Substack), and / or @underthedesknews (Substack).

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I will try to update this post with any additional resources as they become available because, well, the horrors persist (😭), but so do we! 💪🏼 Coming together as a community is resistance; we take care of each other.

Sending the biggest hugs [and solidarity]—

xx, Natalie