Chicago Neighborhood-Based Mutual Aid Organizations & Free Stores:
11th Ward Free Store: The 11th Ward Free Store supports migrant families and any Chicagoans in need by providing essential items for free. [IG]
Abundant Chicago Collective: Chicago mutual aid collective primarily working in community in Englewood. [IG]
Albany Park Mutual Aid: Albany Park Mutual Aid is a cooperative group of community members striving together to meet the vital needs of the families, friends, and neighbors that are part of the Albany Park community. APMA supports neighbors in need by providing goods such as groceries, household supplies, diapers, etc. [Website] [IG]
Albany Park Organizing Committee: Anti-imperialist, abolitionist mutual aid collective hosting regular food distributions in Albany Park, organizing an emergency warming space in the winter and more, along with consciousness-raising, local power building and political education. [Website] [IG]
Bronzeville-Kenwood Mutual Aid: Bronzeville/Kenwood Mutual Aid (BKMA) is a grassroots group of neighbors, friends, and families who use mutual aid and exchange principles to address, heal and acknowledge the communities’ strengths, gifts, and needs. [Website] [IG]
Edgewater Mutual Aid Network: Edgewater Mutual Aid Network (EMAN) is a grassroots, volunteer, abolitionist and non-hierarchical effort aiming to provide critical relief and engage in mutual aid practices with those in the Edgewater community. [Website] [IG]
El Árbol: A pop-up free store and mutual aid network in Logan Square supporting new migrant neighbors. [IG]
Gage Park Latinx Council: A Grassroots Latinx, Queer, DACA-led org rooted in abolition and mutual aid, operating two community centers in Gage Park. [Website] [IG]
Humboldt Park Solidarity Network: Neighbor-to-neighbor network offering direct aid, advocacy and operating a free store in the Casa Hernandez Community Space. [IG]
Irving Park Mutual Aid: Neighbor-to-neighbor network providing weekly delivery of meals and essential items to neighbors in need and direct aid. [IG]
Logan Square Mutual Aid: Neighbor-to-neighbor network providing weekly delivery of meals and essential items to neighbors in need and direct aid. [Website] [IG]
Mayfair Mutual Aid: Mayfair Mutual Aid is an all-volunteer, grassroots collective operating as part of the Chicago Mutual Aid Network. Neighbors help with grocery and medicine pick up/delivery, provide cash assistance for rent and other bills, and share resources for medical care, employment, and other help. [Website]
McKinley Park Mutual Aid: Neighbor-to-neighbor mutual aid network providing direct aid based on community needs, advocacy and stewarding a community garden. [IG]
Northwest Side Solidarity Network: NSSN works in solidarity with mutual aid groups throughout the city to ensure that all our neighbors have access to the resources that they need. Their work focuses on the Northwest side of the city, where they host a monthly free food-pop up with fresh produce, dairy, dried and canned goods. [Website] [IG]
The Parlor: The Parlor was launched in November 2023 with the aim of helping neighbors clear out unwanted items while also supporting community, getting needed resources to neighbors in need, and reducing the community’s landfill contributions. The Logan Square space provides a simple drop off destination for donations and other items that can be reused in the community. All distribution is done via community partners including El Arbol, Freestyle, Humboldt Park Solidarity Network, CUSP and South Loop Community Table. [IG]
Pilsen Free Store: Neighbor-to-neighbor free store operated by Pilsen Solidarity Network. [IG]
Portage Park Mutual Aid: Portage Park Mutual Aid Network is a group of neighbors who came together to support one another during the Covid-19 pandemic, part of a mutual aid response coalition made up of many grassroots neighborhood networks across Chicago. They provide essential items and aid to neighbors who are currently in need of some assistance. [Facebook]
Rogers Park Free Store: A mutual aid space for the Rogers Park neighborhood, open hours from 12-2 p.m. on Saturdays. [IG]
Rogers Park Food Not Bombs: Part of the longstanding international Food Not Bombs tradition, Rogers Park FNB are Chicago abolitionists distributing rescued food to neighbors and offering other mutual aid. [IG]
Sandwich Club @ The Groove: Monthly gathering at this Northwest Side yoga studio to make sandwiches for distribution to unhoused encampments and community fridges. [IG]
Southeast Mutual Aid: Mutual aid collective for the Southeast Side of Chicago, with a focus on supporting both migrants and longtime neighbors, including unhoused neighbors. [IG]
Southwest Collective: SW Collective provides an open forum for southwest side residents to voice their concerns; hear new perspectives from their neighbors; learn about existing public resources; and launch economic, educational, and recreational initiatives that bring siloed communities together. [Website] [IG]
UChicago Mutual Aid Network (via #CareNotCops): Mutual aid network connected to #CareNotCops, an abolitionist group at the University of Chicago. [IG]
Ukrainian Village Mutual Aid: UKVMA is an all volunteer, grassroots organization operating in Ukrainian Village, Chicago. Formed in March 2020 to help support one another during the COVID-19 pandemic, UKVMA continues to support the community. [Website] [IG]
West Side Mutual Aid: Mutual aid network between Austin, East Garfield Park, North Lawndale, West Garfield Park, and West Loop. [IG]
West Town Community Relief: A community collective supporting West Town neighbors in need, frequently with direct aid. [IG]
Wicker Park-Bucktown Mutual Aid: Wicker Park-Bucktown Mutual Aid is run completely by volunteers who are here to make helping one another easy. [Website] [IG]
Zakaruaji Growth Collective: Trans Black/Indigenous and dedicated to providing fresh food to the South Shore community and inspiring mutual aid projects. [IG]
Citywide Mutual Aid Organizations & Initiatives:
Burrito Brigade Chicago: A volunteer-run grassroots organization that prepares and delivers hot meals to hungry people. [IG]
Chicago Community Jail Support: Chicago Community Jail Support is a daily, on the ground, grassroots mutual aid project run completely by volunteers. Their mission is to assist anyone being released from Cook County Jail, their loved ones, and the surrounding community. They focus on providing direct aid that meets the immediate needs of those being released with phone calls, warm clothing, snacks, drinks, PPE, safe transportation home, and emergency housing. [Website] [IG]
Chicago United Solidarity Project (CUSP): Chicago United Solidarity Project (CUSP) creates radical and holistic systems of care to meet people’s basic needs while building solidarity and political power in and across Chicago’s frontline communities. They practice mutual aid and collective organizing with a reparative lens, redistribute wealth and resources without barriers or judgment, and assist people navigating the informal economy through material and communal support. [Website] [IG]
Chicago Youth Mutual Aid: The Chicago Youth Mutual Aid, best known as CYMA, is an effort born from the collaboration of five Black and Brown grassroots led organizations in Chicago serving youth and their families: Assata’s Daughters, Chicago Freedom School, Circles & Ciphers, Street Youth Rise Up and Youth Empowerment Performance Project. Even though this effort was created as a response to COVID-19, these organizations are invested in continuing this project in the long-term. [Website]
Chicagoland Food Sovereignty Coalition: CFSC is working to create a better food system, by linking mutual aid groups, organizations, businesses, and individuals committed to the effort. [Website] [IG]
Cipotxs de Chicago: Chicagoans from Central America doing mutual aid, building community and advocating for human rights. [IG]
Community Utility: A mutual aid effort to assist those experiencing hardship paying utility bills. [Website]
Femme Defensa: A by-survivors, for-survivors collective that supports femmes in Pilsen and Little Village and provides them with tools and tactics to keep themselves safe and organizing mutual aid. [IG]
Free Style Chicago: FreeStyle is a mutual aid, mobile clothing store; providing all Chicago communities with stylish, high-quality clothing for free. [Website] [IG]
Freedom Fighter Herbs: FFH is a collective mutual aid effort on lands colonially known as Chicago, intended to support local organizers, care workers, and folks who experience police brutality in somatic wellness and relationship to plant kindred. [Website] [IG]
Getting Grown Collective: Getting Grown Collective works to equip Black and Brown communities in the Chicagoland area with tools required to develop self-sustaining knowledge by supporting community-driven agriculture projects, collaborating with food and environmental policy makers, activating multi-generational engagement with agriculture and providing alternative access to health professionals and healthy lifestyle options. Their “Farm, Food, Familias” mutual aid initiative offers free meal distribution, cooking lessons and more. [Website] [IG]
Heater Bloc Chicago: A mutual aid collective building and distributing tent-safe heaters for houseless neighbors. [IG]
The Love Fridge: The Love Fridge is a Chicago mutual aid group grounded in food, working to place and sustain community refrigerators across the city. They are powered by reciprocity, mutual respect, and the belief that being able to feed yourself is a right, not a privilege. Their goal is to care for our community while working against food apartheid and food waste, alongside other like-minded community groups. [Website] [IG]
Market Box: Market Box is a mutual aid project that sources food from small farms and distributes it for free across the South Side of Chicago. Market Box crowd-funds to bulk-buy produce from across the midwest, and distributes over 420 bags of food each month to a network of families on the South Side. Their twice-monthly, volunteer-led distribution days are based at First Presbyterian Church in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. [Website] [IG]
Neighbor to Neighbor Literacy Project: This team promotes literacy by building and distributing books to more than 200 Little Free Libraries across Chicago. [IG]
Nita’s Love Train: Autonomous mutual aid project hosting pop-up distribution events and providing direct aid and essential items, with a focus on supporting young parents. [IG]
Nuevos Vecinos: Free store in Chicago serving newly arrived migrant neighbors. [Website]
One Tail at a Time Pet Mutual Aid: One Tail at a Time believes that all pet owners should have access to the resources needed to keep their pets happy, healthy, and most importantly, in their home. Keeping pets with the people who love them is a hugely important way to help our local community, as well as reduce the number of animals surrendered to shelters. One Tail at a Time Pet Mutual Aid (“PMA”) is a combination of community-centric programming aimed at sharing our resources with our neighbors across Chicagoland. [Website] [IG]
Punks With Lunch Chicago: Mutual aid organization distributing food and harm reduction materials to Chicago’s most vulnerable communities. [IG]
Refugee Community Connection: Refugee Community Connection is a volunteer-run, self-directed community organization that seeks to ease the transition for newly arrived refugees to Chicago. They provide resources, information, and household necessities. [Website]
Suburban & NWI Mutual Aid Organizations & Free Stores
Aurora Community Fridge: Community fridge managed by Aurora Mutual Aid. [IG]
Aurora Mutual Aid: Education, advocacy and mutual aid hub in Aurora, IL. [Website] [IG]
Evanston Community Fridges: Evanston Community Fridges is a mutual aid network rooted in collective community care through access to free food. They organize fridges hosted within our city to feed one another, and take responsibility for meeting each other’s needs without relying on ineffective institutions to provide nourishment and cultural affirmation. [Website] [IG]
Food Not Bombs NWI: Northwest Indiana chapter of Food Not Bombs, an international mutual aid organization distributing rescued food to neighbors in need. [Website] [IG]
Hammond Community Garden: A food justice/sovereignty project in Hammond, IN which seeks to bring neighbors and local community members together in a collaborative setting, engage in mutual aid, and collectively meet our need for fresh, healthy food to be freely available and shared. [Website] [IG]
Joy Bomb Social Center: Northwest Indiana’s only radical social center and mutual aid hub. [IG]
Mutual Aid Dawning: A mutual aid collective building liberation culture and projects in the suburbs of shikaakwa (settler named Chicago, IL). Initiatives include jail support and an abolitionist working group. [Website] [IG]
Refugee Community Connection: Refugee Community Connection is a volunteer-run, self-directed community organization that seeks to ease the transition for newly arrived refugees to Chicago. They provide resources, information, and household necessities. [Website]
Service and Learning Together (SaLT): Shop N’ Drop’s mission is to meaningfully engage community members to support local families challenged by food insecurity. Shop N’ Drop develops ongoing relationships with all supported families in order to best understand their present and future needs, as well as provide messages of hope and encouragement. Shop N’ Drop provides groceries and personal items on a biweekly basis to approximately 425 people in 100+ families who are food insecure. The project started shortly after the pandemic in May 2020 and continues yet today. [Website] [IG]
beyond november 