By TM
In spring of 2020, shortly after the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Philly Socialists formed a mutual aid program designed to extend food security to individuals in need throughout Philadelphia. This project, initially based in the Kensington area, offered resources to members of the Kensington community and delivered groceries and other requested necessities to households all over the city. Part of this project eventually separated from Philly Socialists in the spring of 2021 and still independently shares resources and redistributes wealth in the Kensington community today as the Community Action Relief Project (CARP). The part of the project which remained affiliated with Philly Socialists, the Philly Survival Collective (PSC), continues to deliver to households and community fridges throughout Philadelphia, mainly in West and Southwest Philadelphia.
In the fall of 2024, I spoke individually with three long-time PSC organizers — Jeremy, Kevin, and Kristin — about their experiences in the PSC and their hopes for the future of the organization. Our conversations have been edited for clarity and merged together to connect the views and stories of the interviewees.
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TM: How did you originally get involved with the PSC, and how long have you been involved? How was the group organized when you first joined?
Kevin: Like so many people, I became interested in looking to contribute to the greater good in the midst of the pandemic — looking for ways that I could help. People were trapped inside, and there was a lot of social upheaval going on, and that’s the backdrop under which I began seeking organizations that I could put my efforts into in order to feel like I was contributing to a world that I wanted to see, contributing to the change that I wanted to see in the world. And so I joined up in 2020.
Jeremy: I got involved — I think it was like a few months after it originally got started in 2020. Originally it was really just Philly Socialists’ mutual aid project, and this was in response to the pandemic. I forget exactly when it got started, but it was probably like March or April — sometime early on. I got involved when one of the core organizers reached out to me and was like, “Hey, we have this database we’re using to keep track of all the requests that are coming in, and we could use someone with tech skills to help with managing this database.” And so I helped out with that and was also doing dispatch at the time—basically reaching out to our lists of drivers trying to get people to sign up to do deliveries each day. I didn’t do that every day, because we had a rotating schedule of dispachers. At the time, it was a lot bigger than it is now, since there was a lot of need for food at that time with the pandemic with people losing their jobs. But also with people losing their jobs, some of them had more time on their hands to be able to help out with stuff like this. So we were doing like multiple deliveries a day in the early months.
Kristin: For me, we were coming out of the end of quarantine. Masking was still more common, and I was trying to find a way to do direct action—I’d worked with nonprofits before, but I wanted to [do] direct action focused on food and people who needed food and bringing those together. It felt like a really good way to be involved in my community. I was just looking at different food access organizations in the city, and the first one to get back to me was PSC. And the more I learned about what they did and how they worked, it just resonated with me.
Jeremy: I got involved back then, and over time the project evolved, became named Community Action Relief Project, and then started operating out of the supply hub (which at the time was the Philly Socialists’ office). As that continued going on for a few months, I think the folks that were really bottomlining the supply hub operations realized that there was a lot of immediate need right there in Kensington. I think it was a little bit of a weird dynamic to be packing a lot of these boxes of food then taking them out of Kensington to be delivering them all over the city. And so eventually they [CARP] decided they wanted to split out and really focus on immediate needs in that community. That’s when there was a split in the organization, because some of us, including me personally, were out in West Philly, which is further away from Kensington, and we had this feeling that there’s a handful of families who were counting on us to help them with their food needs. And so, not wanting to just leave those people without any support — that’s what caused a smaller group of us to say, “Hey, I think we want to keep going with the deliveries.” And so we kind of split out, and that was the formation of Philly Survival Collective.
Kevin: With the infrastructure we had during COVID, we were covering all of Philadelphia. That said, it was an incredibly harried operation: trying to find drivers that could cover different areas on a biweekly basis, organizing requesters into geographic areas so drivers wouldn’t be driving from Germantown to South Philly over to West Philly then up to Bridesburg. That situation is also what brought us perilously close to potentially shutting down at one point, and that’s when the decision was made to focus exclusively on West Philadelphia. Through that, we’ve strengthened bonds, we’ve created consistency, and we’ve made a sustainable organization that allows for expansion.
Kristin: I think it was like 2021 or 2022 when I came on, and it was kind of just me doing deliveries and I’d have a couple of people I’d deliver food to — maybe I’d do some grocery shopping then load up my car and then make my rounds. . . . I guess I was just looking to help with food access. I wasn’t someone who had been involved with providing prepped food to whoever wanted it, without strings attached or trying to jump through hoops, and pursuing that felt proper to me, for lack of a better word.
TM: What is your role in the PSC? How has your role in the project changed over time?
Kevin: I primarily work on reaching out to requesters within the West Philadelphia area and confirming that they are available to receive grocery deliveries — working out scheduling with them, then passing that information on to our dispatchers. In a lot of ways the work that I do reaps the most immediate benefits—it reaps the most benefits to me, is what I mean, and it’s immediately rewarding because I’m directly interfacing with all of the requesters we’re supporting. These are people in food deserts or people who are feeling food insecure, and the work that we do is that we accept donations, we try to reduce food waste from restaurants and organizations that would be throwing out food that’s not expired, but if it was not to find a home, it would be going to waste. And we repurpose that and redirect that to our requesters. My day-to-day is primarily reaching out to a requester to see if they’re available for a delivery the upcoming week, seeing if there are any special things we need to shop for—some requesters have food allergies, some have a special diet that necessitates there being special shops for them—checking in to see how they’re doing, and bringing new requesters into the fold. Once we have somebody who is requesting assistance, I reach out to them, get all of their information, compile all of that, put that in our online repository, and that gets sent out to the dispatchers who then work to assign drivers to the people who are requesting assistance that weekend.
Kristin: I was a driver at first, and then the volunteer coordinator got busy with other stuff, I don’t know exactly what happened. But there was a need and I was like, “I’m happy to step in with that!” Being volunteer coordinator involves greeting people who fill out our form, inviting them to the Discord, introducing them to the people that they need to be involved with, whether they’ll be involved in dispatching or getting food or driving. I’ve been trying to get political education up and running, and I feel like we haven’t had the momentum to get a core nucleus of people doing that, but I’ve been trying to figure out what the interest is and helping people connect so they can pursue that. I’m a big proponent of social events, I love getting people together and just enjoying each others’ company. You often don’t have a lot of facetime with a lot of people in the project, since there are a lot of people involved but you don’t always work together with them directly. So having events helps you realize more of what it is that you’re a part of and what you’re doing, which I think is really cool and really neat.
Jeremy: Originally, I had more tech related work to do, because we were just trying to figure out how to set up a system to do what we were doing. And now — I’d say for the past, like, two years really — we’ve had a stable system that doesn’t really require a lot of maintenance, and so there’s less of the tech stuff. Dispatch is something I’ve continued to do throughout, but I also help do the storage fridge maintenance, which includes doing some shopping each week, and then packing the boxes that are to be delivered and coordinating with drivers about pickup if needed. The great thing recently is that for a while I was the main person, but now we do have some new people getting involved in the last couple of months helping out with the fridge stuff, so that’s been super helpful.
Kristin: Being more involved in the operations over time has helped me feel more like I need to keep my eyes on things rather than passively waiting for someone to ask me to do something. I’m more proactive, I’m looking for people, I try to support when I can whenever I see that it’s needed. I feel like we’ve been having some events with Philly Socialists and we show up to each other’s things and it’s nice to see people who are in the same mindspace. The longer I’ve been in it, the more comfortable [I’ve] been with the people I see and being a steward and welcoming people in to the best of my ability.
TM: How has the PSC project in general changed over time? Has it been streamlined in any particular way?
Kevin: So, organizationally, there was a period in time as federal response to the pandemic was coming to an end and people were beginning to reapproach what had been normalcy. During this period, there were questions about shutting the operation down given organizational changes that were happening with sister groups that we worked with and relied on. A lot of community fridges that we used to supply and whom we worked with to supply us were shutting down during that period as well, and there was an existential question as to whether or not we could go on. Truly inspiring was the way that this community of activists gathered around and through sheer will made this operation not only survive, but thrive — and that’s including bringing in more requesters, that’s including revisions to the ways we assign deliveries, ideas about expanding the scope of our delivery area, as well as new sources of donations we can bring into our operation. In addition to that, we also during this time got on a contract for a refrigeration unit, a walk-in refrigeration unit, so that we could accommodate the increase in requesters and food donations. So it has been expanding, and the community itself has grown strong — the requesters I know now on a very close basis, I talk to them every week. It’s very, very heartening to be walking around on Sunday and receive a thank you. I know that not everybody in the organization is allowed that, because a lot of people don’t interface directly with requesters, so I try to pass that along when I can. But everybody in this organization is making a meaningful difference, and that’s something I hear from the requesters on a regular basis.
Jeremy: I think streamlining it was kind of just about settling our routine, which has been pretty much the same for the past couple of years, where we have this handful of families we rotate and deliver to on a regular basis. Every once [in] a while there’s a new family or household that’s cycled in, but basically we’re delivering to each of these households every other week. And so since it’s the same thing every other week, it doesn’t require a lot of changes to the systems.
TM: What do you view as the core mission or role of the PSC?
Kevin: Well, we’re in a late-stage capitalist society, and there’s the push for growth at all costs when it comes to the top one percent. The rest of us are reaching up for crumbs. But even amongst those of us reaching up for crumbs, a lot of us have it better than others, and we can catch the crumbs more easily than others due to there being glaring inequalities in the way that society is structured and the way that things have historically allowed for. As such, we’re trying to even the scales out to the best of the minor abilities that we have, outside of just trying to survive ourselves. We are trying to contribute to a more equitable future, a more equitable present, and essentially trying to reach out to anyone who might be in a place where they feel like they don’t know where their next meal is going to come from. I don’t know how much I can disclose about certain requesters, about the situations they’re in, but… you really feel the need to do something when you’re confronted with some of the stories and some of the realities of some of the people that we are trying to assist.
Jeremy: At its core level we’re just trying to help people out. More specifically, I think what we do that maybe other mutual aid groups aren’t doing is the delivery aspect. The city has lots of free food sites around that people can come to, but you often have to wait in a long line. If you have mobility challenges, it’s not easy to get out there, and same thing with community fridges — you have to go there to get the food. There are some other groups that do this too, and I think in the early days we were trying to focus especially on families who either were immunocompromised or had health concerns, and we’re offering a way to bring food directly to them. Something that I think we’ve struggled a little bit with, from my perspective, is the building community aspect. We obviously have relationships with these families we’ve been delivering to for a long time, but we’ve struggled with how to make it more of a community thing. We also have at times made efforts to encourage some of the people we deliver to to see if they want to get more involved with PSC, and that hasn’t really panned out much either. I feel like there’s more of a divide between the people doing the operations of PSC and those receiving the food than we wished there was, and we’re working to change that. But at the end of the day, I think we’re just trying to help people out.
Kristin: Today, whenever I visit a community fridge, there’s always someone there looking for food, and when you drop food off there are people who are really appreciative. I feel like we’re helping fill a gap in food access that shouldn’t be there. There is food, there is produce. We’ve worked with an organization that brings us prepped food from Penn campus events, and there’s so much food available and so much need for food. I think there are a lot of organizations that are doing great work, and PSC is one that’s connecting dots that seem obvious but are somehow not always connected.
TM: Are there any specific experiences, interactions or even organizational relationships that you’ve had during your time in the PSC that stand out to you?
Kristin: There’s one woman I did a delivery to who chatted for a long while, and she seemed really cool, and whenever I go I’m excited to visit with her. The first delivery I did for her, there was a whole bunch of stuff and I got every single thing and she was really appreciative. I think because I deliver some groceries to the People’s Fridge on 52nd Street, I meet people who help me with unloading my car, who help me load up the fridge, who are super duper thankful and appreciative and saying, “Thanks so much for doing this.” One of them gave me a hug! It’s not much work or effort from my perspective, and to give this impact — it feels nice to see and be a part of.
Kevin: We have requesters that have lost their only ties to their immediate family through gun violence, and we have a biweekly schedule for reaching out to people, and sometimes you’ll get a call or you’ll get a text at an odd hour when you’re not expecting it from somebody saying, “I really need help. I need help right now. I know that I’m not on the schedule, right now it’s not my turn, but things are rough, things are bad for me.” And we do all we can to accommodate moments like that, because that is when it is needed most. That’s when the work we do is needed most. When that request is fulfilled, the feeling of relief you get whenever you receive their “thank you so much,” it really emphasizes the value of what is being done. We’re all really small parts of this organization, doing small things, but what it adds up to within the community I feel is absolutely vital and part of what makes this organization special and West Philadelphia special as well.
Jeremy: I don’t usually do deliveries myself, but once in a while I do, and being able to meet a very specific request is great—you know, it’s not even necessities, it can be something small that just makes peoples’ lives better. One time I delivered a birthday cake for some kids. The mom specifically requested a birthday cake, and being able to get them that and hopefully making these kids’ lives a little bit happier felt good. There have been occasional times when we’ve done deliveries to people who are actively involved in a struggle with their landlord—not very often, but sometimes we’ll work with someone who’s in that situation. We occasionally made deliveries to the encampments at Penn. Anytime we’re able to support active struggles I think has also definitely felt good. It’s good to make it so people have more time and energy so that they can focus on whatever they’re fighting for and not have to worry about food necessarily at that point in time.
TM: What are your hopes for the future of the PSC?
Kristin: I guess to partner with more families? It’s been really nice having a fridge we can store our food in, because previously we were having to deliver immediately after acquiring groceries, which to me was very stressful. Having a fridge has been a nice development. I guess in the future we could be serving more people and getting more people involved. Maybe being aware of and having partnerships with other organizations. I guess being open to and able to respond and adapt to any requests that come up, and building partnerships just so we can be more effective and efficient helping people have access to food, helping people give back in ways that feel good to them.
Kevin: As long as there is a need for it in society, which I don’t think we’re going to solve in the next five years, so as long as there is a need for it in society I would like to see the PSC become scalable and continue to grow to encompass all of Philadelphia. If that works, then maybe even to try other cities as well—I think the sky is the limit with what we are capable of doing. I legitimately think that it is valuable work and that we have a model that can be applied to different areas and can make a meaningful difference.
Jeremy: My idea about it is that we don’t know what’s going to happen in our world, things are constantly changing, for all we know in a year we could be living under a legitimately fascist government, we could be dealing with extreme climate change, a hurricane or something, and I think there’s definitely value in practicing for what we’re going to do if we need to kind of scale up these kinds of things to a much larger degree. Having some kind of infrastructure in place is useful. I think if you can experience working together with other people and knowing how to cooperate and get things done it’s super valuable, because as we saw with COVID, if there’s some kind of major event, a disaster, that’s often when you see a lot of these mutual aid groups and organizing all of the sudden burst into action. So I think the more we can do to prepare for that kind of stuff, hopefully the better shape we’ll be in when it’s needed at a larger scale.
If you’d like to get involved with the Philly Survival Collective, click here to learn more.
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