Our Mission:
Founded in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, ABQ Mutual Aid is a volunteer-driven organization committed to fostering community resilience in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In partnership with our fiscal sponsor, the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), we strive to address immediate needs and systemic challenges by distributing food and essential resources, hosting community events, and creating arts spaces. We emphasize in all we do it is solidarity not charity.
Contributions by community supported in providing food resources, housing support, and essential aid to countless neighbors. As a community we have collectively supported over 82,000 community members in Albuquerque and surrounding communities. Over the years, we have witnessed the power of mutual aid in action; people showing up for each other, redistributing resources, and upholding our commitment to collective care and justice, where everyone’s well-being matters. This collective work is only possible because of the generosity and care of community members.
Contributions by community supported in providing food resources, housing support, and essential aid to countless neighbors. As a community we have collectively supported over 82,000 community members in Albuquerque and surrounding communities. Over the years, we have witnessed the power of mutual aid in action; people showing up for each other, redistributing resources, and upholding our commitment to collective care and justice, where everyone’s well-being matters. This collective work is only possible because of the generosity and care of community members.
Our Initiatives
- Solidarity Sharing(Resource Distribution)
- Food Sharing: Weekly, we provide food and resources to approximately 180 unsheltered individuals, including warm meals, and support an additional 100 households residing in motels, houses, and apartment complexes.
- Collaborative Efforts: Our partnerships enhance our reach and impact:
- Nahalat Shalom: Share a space for mutual aid to continue to grow and serve our community in love.
- Albuquerque Junior League Academy: Collaborate to distribute diapers to families in need.
- MoGro: Support local food systems by providing fresh, healthy food options.
- Food Not Bombs: Coordinate food donation pickups to minimize waste and feed the community.
- Tiny Grocers: Work together to deliver hot meals to our unsheltered neighbors.
- Project Feed the Hood: A food literacy and community gardening initiative of SWOP that aims to improve community health through education and revival of traditional growing methods. PFTH shares fresh veggies that are shared with community
- East Central Ministries (ECM): A nonprofit organization development strategies to support housing options including a community land trust in the International District that includes members of mutual aid members participating in the the visioning and advocacy process. ECM also shares food with ABQ Mutual Aid to distribute to families in our community.
- Every Thursday: members of ABQ Mutual Aid cook and share warm food in the International District with our unsheltered neighbors
- The People’s Potluck: gathers weekly to share food in a local park, with ABQ Mutual Aid offering support through shared resources and mutual care.
- Community Engagement
- Educational and Arts Events: We organize events and create spaces that celebrate local artists, promote cultural exchange, and educate the community on various social issues.
- Disrupt Displacement Create Communities of Care: Tina Kachele is an artist and ABQ Mutual Aid volunteer who worked with the ABQ Mutual Aid Coordinating Team to create her map Disrupt Displacement. This map highlights six of the many locations around Albuquerque where unsheltered community members make their home, and where the City of Albuquerque continues to enact sweeps, displacing people and often confiscating or throwing away their homes and belongings. This map is a call to action for the City to #StopTheSweeps. The second side of the map, CreateCommunitiesofCare, reinforces the commitment to a model of solidarity not charity. At each location on the map, the artist has placed painted rocks,* bringing joy, and the presence of community members, back to the places where sweeps continue to happen. #WeBelong and #WeCannotBeErased are calls to action asserting the vitality and beauty of our friends and neighbors who live outside. Visit: link for more information
- #WeCannotBeErased are calls to action asserting the vitality and beauty of our friends and neighbors who live outside. Since March 16, 2020, ABQ Mutual Aid has served over 60,000 community members in all 17 zip codes in the Albuquerque Metro Area and beyond. These care packages are prepared and delivered with love (to both housed and unhoused community members), with no criteria to meet and nothing asked in return. Our work is done and sustained by the generous donation.
- We believe in ongoing political education for ourselves and our community. In that spirit, we would like to share this resource: “The Criminalization of Homelessness: Explained” by Bidish Sarma & Jessica Brand. https://bit.ly/3sP5UGq
- Since the start of the pandemic, Tina Kachele has been a volunteer with ABQ Mutual Aid. This map project is an outgrowth of that work and her engagement in support for unsheltered community members, including organizing to defend and support tent communities and stop sweeps. Over the last decade, her commitment to anti-racism and decolonization has included creating alternatives to 911, solidarity with people living in sanctuary to resist deportation, and organizing to end police violence. She is a book designer and artist in Albuquerque who utilizes her skills in the service of community and social justice.
- Disrupt Displacement Create Communities of Care: Tina Kachele is an artist and ABQ Mutual Aid volunteer who worked with the ABQ Mutual Aid Coordinating Team to create her map Disrupt Displacement. This map highlights six of the many locations around Albuquerque where unsheltered community members make their home, and where the City of Albuquerque continues to enact sweeps, displacing people and often confiscating or throwing away their homes and belongings. This map is a call to action for the City to #StopTheSweeps. The second side of the map, CreateCommunitiesofCare, reinforces the commitment to a model of solidarity not charity. At each location on the map, the artist has placed painted rocks,* bringing joy, and the presence of community members, back to the places where sweeps continue to happen. #WeBelong and #WeCannotBeErased are calls to action asserting the vitality and beauty of our friends and neighbors who live outside. Visit: link for more information
- Service Learning Projects: In collaboration with Technology Leadership High School, Del Norte High School, and Amy Biehl High School, students participate in creating care packages, fostering a sense of service and community involvement.
- Del Norte High School Capstone Project: In 2024, ABQ Mutual Aid served as a thought partner in the Ed Café, supporting student projects focused on youth homelessness. Building on that foundation, in 2025, ABQ Mutual Aid collaborated with the capstone instructor at Del Norte High School to co-develop curriculum exploring the root causes of youth homelessness and student-led solutions. As part of this work, students are creating a Youth Satellite Resource Hub, an extension of a Family Center to provide resources for young people, families, and the broader community. Their proposals build on existing assets at their school and include expanding art-based mental health care, cooking classes, a fashion-forward clothing closet, and a youth-led resource center—all planned for implementation in the 2025–26 school year.
- Video Featuring Lexy Aragon’s 2024 capstone project and internship with East Central Ministries in Albuquerque, NM. Several organizations, including members of ABQ Mutual Aid, contributed to the development of a Community Land Trust Board in the International District, rooted in a vision for community ownership and housing justice.
- Lexy Aragon, a student at Del Norte High School, participated in a capstone program focused on serving unhoused individuals in Albuquerque. Her experience not only provided valuable career skills but also made a significant contribution to the community. “I got a chance to do something that helps the community as a whole,” Lexy says. “For me, personally, this internship was life changing.”
- “We’ve incorporated what she was already passionate about and doing into our housing project because we want to be hearing from people with lived experience.” - John Bulten, East Central Ministries
- Video Featuring Lexy Aragon’s 2024 capstone project and internship with East Central Ministries in Albuquerque, NM. Several organizations, including members of ABQ Mutual Aid, contributed to the development of a Community Land Trust Board in the International District, rooted in a vision for community ownership and housing justice.
- Educational and Arts Events: We organize events and create spaces that celebrate local artists, promote cultural exchange, and educate the community on various social issues.
- Summer Enrichment Internship Program-This program funds summer internships for New Mexico high school students, aiming to provide them with high-quality work experiences. Through this partnership students are exposed to careers in behavioral health and social services.
Continuing the Work: Grassroots Care and Connection
Since the pandemic, individuals rooted in the vision of collective care through ABQ Mutual Aid have supported the growth of grassroots efforts such as The Hook Up, Really Really Free Market, Buy Nothing Albuquerque, and The People's Potluck, Human Rights Week and more. These community-led groups share food, harm reduction supplies, art as healing and other resources; especially with our unsheltered neighbors, demonstrating the ongoing power of mutual aid.
Volunteer Integration
We welcome new volunteers through a comprehensive onboarding process, ensuring they are well-equipped to contribute effectively. Our onboarding presentation provides an overview of our mission, values, and operational procedures.
Over 400 community members have actively participated in ABQ Mutual Aid since its launching, contributing their time, skills, and care to support guide and sustain this collective work. Their leadership and lived experiences have shaped every aspect of our efforts; from food distribution and advocacy to creative projects and youth engagement, demonstrating the power of community-led solutions grounded in solidarity.
Over 400 community members have actively participated in ABQ Mutual Aid since its launching, contributing their time, skills, and care to support guide and sustain this collective work. Their leadership and lived experiences have shaped every aspect of our efforts; from food distribution and advocacy to creative projects and youth engagement, demonstrating the power of community-led solutions grounded in solidarity.