Meet our June and July 2020 MPF Grantees

adé PROJECT
Barnardsville, NC | $5,000 | July 2020
The adé (artists designing evolution) PROJECT is a Black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) community-based organization made up of artists, organizers, students, educators, and community leaders that cooperate to create a world beyond oppression and inequity. Middle and high school artists and student members of the project are responding to the widespread impacts of COVID-19 through leading community-based research, experiential learning spaces, and intergenerational mobilizations around education inequities in order to make critical shifts to their local education system while also directing mutual aid efforts for their communities. Instagram | Website

Baltimore Safe Haven
Baltimore, MD  |  $5,000  |  June 2020
Due to COVID-19, resources for sex worker, houseless people, and substance-using LGBTQ communities of Baltimore are being greatly affected. Baltimore Safe Haven intends to fill the gap left by local authorities during this period of instability by expanding their mobile outreach program to distribute needed STI prevention materials, food and hygiene materials, overdose prevention supplies, and transportation support for emergencies, mental health, and medical appointments. Website

Black Trans Femmes in the Arts Collective
Brooklyn, NY | $5,000 | July 2020
The Black Trans Femmes in the Arts Collective (BTFA) is a collective of Black trans women and non-binary femmes who are dedicated to creating space for Black trans femmes in the arts. Since their inception, BTFA has been providing resources to Black trans femme artists who lack the resources, visibilty and inclusivity to artistic success. Since COVID-19 has hit Black trans artists especially hard, BTFA is using this moment as an opportunity to support Black trans artists to create the work they would like to create as a means of healing and financial support. Instagram | Website

Central Arkansas Harm Reduction Project
Little Rock, AK | $5,000 | July 2020
The Central Arkansas Harm Reduction Project is led by a multiracial group of young LGBTQ people, including BIPOC youth. Due to an increase in unhoused people, a reduction in available basic services, and the closing of a local LGBTQ youth resource program and shelter, Central Arkansas Harm Reduction Project is expanding their street-outreach program. They are providing hot meals while creating paid, part time positions to coordinate street outreach to meet the increased need created by COVID-19, and will also reinstate their LGBTQ youth exclusive drop in hours at our drop in center which will provide day services to those displaced by the resource program closure. Instagram | Website

Chinara Rituals
Philadelphia, PA  |  $5,000  |  June 2020
Chinara Rituals is launching the Black Queer and Trans Healing and Liberation fund for artists, cultural workers, and organizers. The project will provide direct microgrants to community members and support healing workshops that guide folks to honor rage, pleasure, healing, liberation, and care planning in this time of both pandemics: COVID-19 and the war on Black folks. Workshops will be led by young people in the Healing the Black Body Fellowship, a Black queer and trans youth healing circle. Website

Fannie Lou Hamer Center for Change
Eupora, MS  |  $5,000   |  June 2020
The Fannie Lou Hamer Center for Change has been working as a community hub to support youth and families of color during the COVID-19 pandemic. They will be working to support meal delivery, personal protective equipment, diapers, medical supplies, and Internet hotspots to rural families in response to a lack of supportive infrastructure after the school district’s closure. Facebook

I am Human Foundation
Ellenwood, GA | $5,000 | July 2020
I am Human Foundation is a Black, trans-led organization that aims to create a safe space for individuals who are homeless, living with HIV, and trans youth, with a focus on those who experience discrimination due to their lifestyle or gender identity. In response to COVID-19, they are creating street teams to provide provide PPE, safe sex kits, HIV testing, personal hygiene kits and food for homeless trans youth. Website

Life in My Days
Waterbury, CT | $5,000 | July 2020
Life in My Day’s mission is to support individuals and their communities on their journeys for self-actualization. As a response to COVID-19 and the enormous needs for mutual aid/support, they are creating a mutual aid network across the state of Connecticut to organize community resources, create access to immediate support. In addition, they will lead a transformative justice skills training series to build spaces and practices of safety within their communities. Instagram | Twitter | Website

Masjid al-Rabia + Queer Crescent Healing
Chicago, IL  |  $5,000  |  June 2020
In light of the current pandemic crisis and the vast number of their community members in need, Masjid al-Rabia and Queer Crescent Healing launched the Radical Muslim Mutual Aid program to provide direct financial aid to marginalized Muslims. While this program began in the month of Ramadan, the need continues for Muslim community members, especially for those they are funding who are currently incarcerated. Masjid Website | Queer Crescent Website

The Minnesota Healing Justice Network (and partners)
Minneapolis, MN  |  $5,000  |  June 2020
The Minnesota Healing Justice Network is providing network practitioners with a crisis care stipend to be able to perform healing justice work in Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN. Healing Justice Network providers include herbalists or acupuncturists providing immune support supplements to families experiencing COVID-19, birth and postpartum doulas providing emotional support for pregnant and freshly postpartum people, healers providing smoke inhalation and lung capacity teas and creams for community members affected by COVID-19 and local fires, and plant and nutrition specialists distributing seeds and plants as well as education for self-resiliency. Website

My Sistah’s House
Memphis, TN | $5,000 | July 2020
My Sistah’s House is an organization led by and for Black trans women that provides emergency housing and other urgent services for TGNC people living in Memphis, TN, including funding bail outs for trans women who are incarcerated, while continuing their work to provide emergency and sustainable housing. In response to COVID-19 and the ongoing violence against trans women of color, they are creating 5 staff positions for formerly incarcerated trans women and trans women who are former sex workers to create and lead a street safety outreach team to distribute COVID-19 survival kits to homeless trans women. Website | Facebook

Nolef Turns, Inc
Richmond, VA  |  $5,000  |  June 2020
In order to reduce homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nolef Turns, Inc. will support Black and Brown cis & trans women heads of households who have past criminal convictions retain their current housing by providing microgrants or by rapidly moving them into new housing. Website | Twitter

St. Louis Mutual Aid
St. Louis, MO | $5,000 | July 2020
St. Louis Mutual Aid is a network of organizers, healers, artists, community leaders, and everyday people who are working closely together to fill the gaps in institutional support faced by their communities. In response to COVID-19’s impact on the social, emotional, and economic stability of working class communities of color and the lack of support from social service organizations in their area, St. Louis Mutual Aid is building both short and long term solutions for economic sustainability outside of the state. Website

Stick with Hope
Minneapolis, MN  |  $2,000  |  June 2020
In response to police violence and its aftermath, Stick with Hope is creating a pop-up outdoor art therapy center, while also providing food from local farmers of color. This is taking place in the 3rd Police Precinct which is the epicenter of protests since the police murder of George Floyd.

Stonewall Youth
Olympia, WA  | $5,000 | July 2020
Founded in 1991, Stonewall Youth is a youth-led organization that supports LGBTQ+ youth liberation and the eradication of the intersecting oppressions that harm LGBTQ+ youth and all peoples. In response to the white supremacy, violence, discrimiation, and other harms experienced by Black and Brown young people in their community adminst COVID-19, they are creating programming and infrastructure to support the wellbeing and sustainability of their existing BIPOC leaders and activists while increasing the anti-racist organizing in their community through paid fellowships, trainings, providing supplies for anti-racist mobilizations, and creating healing events for BIPOC young people in Olympia. Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Website

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