West Seattle Mutual Aid Party🎉 Updates!
West Seattle Mutual Aid Party🎉, a partner of NW Hospitality, usually reserves their regular updates for their volunteers and supporters. However, here are snippets from their weekly updates from the last few weeks.
Interested in volunteering with WSMAP? Contact WSMAP Here!
Interested in getting detailed regular updates about WSMAP and the vulnerable community in West Seattle that they serve? Consider becoming a WSMAP supporter!!
5/8/2023 - One part of this work that we all really enjoy is getting the time and opportunity sometimes to chit chat with folks and share news. Folks will ask us about others that we see during distro and it's wonderful to see how much people care about the others in their network and how they're doing. While the community changes every few months as folks are swept or forced to move, we occasionally reconnect with people we haven't seen for weeks or months in new spots or elsewhere in our distro route. One of the stories we learned about was that a couple went into detox but had to pretend that they didn't know each other. However, it was found out that they were a couple and one of them was forced to move to a different detox in another city because couples are not allowed to enter the same detox program together.
5/19/2023 - The following morning, we received word from one of our long-time friends living in a vehicle that somebody had smashed out one of the windows of his van. Fortunately the foundation of trust that we have slowly developed with him over the last year and a half meant that he trusted us enough for us to be the first call he made after this intimidation attempt. Two of our members immediately sprang into action on Sunday morning to meet him at his home and we dispersed funds contributed by you, our supporters, so that he could replace the window the same day with the knowledge that there is an entire group of people out here who have his back. This is mutual aid in action.
5/23/2023 - One great way to stay cool in the hot weather are cooling bandanas, you soak them in clean water and wrap them around your neck and they'll keep you cool! We've stocked up for the upcoming months and we're planning to share some of them with other MA groups.
5/30/2023 - We were able to field two teams this past weekend and ran what is currently our regular route, contacting a total of 30 people. The heat tapered off a bit which brought some relief to our friends living outside after the first heatwave of the year caught many by surprise due to how early it hit. We are taking advantage of this brief meteorological respite to restock our bulk water supplies, fill our freezers with Otter Pops, and place orders of more and more warm weather gear. Our teams have also been distributing a lot of the miniature first-aid kits that we mentioned in our last update and our harm reduction program continues to operate smoothly.
You can follow West Seattle Mutual Aid Party🎉 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MutualAidParty
And you can support them through NWH here or through their Patreon here.