Backline Support
06/06/20
From Christy LeMaster, the Quarantine Times Friday editor
Since the onslaught of COVID-19, small organizations all over Chicago started working to mitigate harm caused by the virus. Mutual aid funds, resource lists, and food pantries began to crop up all over the city. As the protests started this past week, this already busy ecosystem reached a near fever-pitch of new support efforts.
The staff of Brave Space Alliance, a Black-led and trans-led LGBTQ center located on in Hyde Park, on the South Side, initiated their robust Crisis Pantry in response to the virus, and expanded it this week to offer supplies to people providing bail support. By Tuesday, the campaign had attracted so many donations that Brave Space Alliance needed extra locations to store and distribute supplies. Nell Taylor, founder of Read/Write Library and previous QT contributor, sends photos from one of these stockpiles, an apt reminder that we are more powerful than we know.
As multiple protests in honor of Breonna Taylor start across the country today, it seems a good time to lend our resources to Brave Space Alliance so that we can continue to benefit from their leadership.
From the Brave Space Alliance website: Brave Space Alliance is the first Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ Center located on the South Side of Chicago, dedicated to creating and providing affirming, culturally competent, for-us by-us resources, programming, and services for LGBTQ individuals on the South and West sides of the city. We strive to empower, embolden, and educate each other through mutual aid, knowledge-sharing, and the creation of community-sourced resources as we build toward the liberation of all oppressed peoples.