YAA mutual aid council

hello everyone;

i have a proposal for you all—that we found a mutual aid council together. anyone can join the council at any level of commitment, capacity, and ability, so long as they have the desire to be a part of creating a repair-based future centered around meeting the needs of our community.
and by this we mean you can join and come to every meeting every month, or join and come to one zoom a year. you can lurk in the chat just to help your neighbors, or you can build your own projects alongside us.
please feel free to share this page with anyone and everyone that you think might want to be involved!
we look forward to seeing you at the meeting in november!

mutual aid council interest meeting:

Sat November 1st, 2025,

@RIVERSIDE PARK, in ypsi
we’ll be gathering at 12pm, around the pavilion.
bring lunch for yourself or to share, you are welcome to bring comfy chairs, picnic blankets, and anything else you’d like to show or share with the group.

below are just some brainstorming notes on things we could do/ or that i think we should do.

council founding to do list

• send proposal to group
• plan mutual aid council interest meeting
• statement of values, purpose, & goals consensus meeting
• structure and organization meeting
• creating committees (if supported by the consensus)
• first monthly general consensus to decide guidelines of engagement and moderation/ mediation standards

on council website?

• who we are/ about the council formation and structure
• our values/ how we move
• our links & contact info
• learning resources
• local resources
• local events calendar

community values (draft)

• centering the most marginalized: we believe in being intersectional in all our work and lived values, which means listening to people with different views than ours.
• anti-racism: we are rooting out white supremacy from every nook and cranny of ourselves and our spaces. we are doing this by checking our privilege and discomfort, listening to our black and brown community members and friends, and doing the work to introspect on our own behavior and hold ourselves accountable, because we don’t want to be responsible for propagating harm on our community with racism.
• honoring indigenous sovereignty: this land belongs to itself, and should be stewarded by the peoples who know it best. we support the right of the peoples of the three fires to care for this land, live on this land, and manage its uses.
• community built on knowing: expect people in your business. expect questions, and relationship building. if you’re just looking for someone to give what you need without sharing anything in return ever, please look at our local resources page, rather than joining our community. we believe deeply in knowing one another so we can care for each other well.
• killing the cop in your head: we are abolitionists, and do not believe in policing or punitive culture. we are striving everyday to imagine new futures where there is no policing—not in our cities and towns, or in our conversations and communities.
• divesting from capitalism: we understand that many asks will be centered around money donations, but we ask that you consider other ways of having your needs met—by asking for food, shelter, clothes, services, and any other needed goods directly.
• honoring everyone’s ability level: we will not praise the written word, literacy, higher education, or any other form of colonial power structure. everyone can participate at their level, and we will not challenge or question people’s own knowingness of their body-mind or capabilities. time is one of these powers and so we work with an understanding that growth is a slow process, and patience is the virtue of a friend.
• non-hierarchical structures: anyone who shares our values is welcome to join the council and share their input. we are anarchists and we make our choices through consensus discussions once a month via zoom.
• we are all moderators/ leaders/ teachers: or none of us are. no one’s knowledge is better than someone else’s. we are all equal in co creating this work together, and are all working towards more ways of making that equitable to everyone.
• work on good faith: don’t assume people are against you, or moving from bad intentions. try to assume neutrality or goodness behind others motivations in the same way you’d like people to believe that you aren’t essentially motivated by greed and selfishness. essentially: if you aren’t trying to hurt people, please don’t believe or act from the belief that people are trying to hurt you.

council goals (draft)

• to have an efficient space for people to share their resources and needs
• to connect our community and all of its wonderful organizations together
• to connect people in need to resources through tabling, event planning, and other outreach
• to learn and grow through connection to one another
• to listen.
• to provide support to other groups and projects
• to build systems of being and relating to one another that don’t rely on hierarchical government control or state policing efforts

council structure proposal

• general council/ consensus
  • summary from last meeting
  • announcements
  • old hat
  • new proposals
  • voting & rebuttal
  • final words
• committees
  • general council administration
  • moderation & mediation
  • group chat mods
  • event planning
  • community networking
  • digital histories

requests chat guidelines

• in our requests chat please keep your requests short and to the point, and please don’t make more than 2 requests per week. this way everyone’s requests have a chance to be seen and fulfilled.
• only requests for mutual aid belong in the requests chat— this is so that everyone has a better chance of getting their needs met. please send DMs if you have resources or support to give to the requester.
• our council discussion chat is open to any and all conversations, and any issues you would like to bring forward. (the general council itself is open to any and all in our area who would like to take part.) so please refrain from putting these things in the request chat.
• a good way to format your request might be to say: hi i’m looking for (blank! maybe a warm winter coat!) and (here include details about the thing, like coat size)
• if the request is a money request, you don’t have to tell us what it is for! your needs are worthy regardless of the culture of deservingness—you don’t need to prove that you deserve our help, we want to help each other here!!

our links

• mutual aid requests chat: this is for requests for aid only
• general council discussion group: this is for anything you have to say to us or about us!
• gift economy chat: this is for anything you have to offer up for anyone who wants, it’s the free table

learning resources

• how to resolve a conflict
• how to repair harm
• how to never call the cops again
• learning sign language
• digital safety for activists
• how consensus works

local resources

• warming center
• food pantries
• growing hope
• care based safety

who we are

• we are a group of trans, disabled, poor queers who wanted to create an organization that could connect people’s needs with proper resources, quickly and efficiently while also building relationships throughout our community
• we are artists, teachers, (etc etc etc) we are not separated by class distinctions
• we formed at the end of 2025 when we saw their was a profound lack in our area of connection between orgs and efficacy in getting peoples needs fundementally met