20 ways Shareable readers are helping during the pandemic

Photo by Nicole Baster on Unsplash

As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, people worldwide have had to alter their regular lives in one way or another due to the pandemic. For most, that has meant staying at home to stop the spread of the coronavirus. As the human spirit is extremely creative, people have found amazing ways to help others while staying safe.

This led us to ask you, our readers, what you’ve been doing to pitch in. We collected your responses in the rather impressive list below (edited for length and clarity). What have we missed? Email us at info@shareable.net and we’ll add your story to the list.

  1. Jose Ramos, futurist, is coordinating an virtual international think tank to think through the changes coming including this question: “When we consider the collaborative governance of our commons, what are the challenges we are facing with the pandemic, or coming out of the pandemic that we will need to address?”
  2. Rebecca Newburn shared Richmond’s growing seed lending library; rallying neighbors for mutual aid and resourcing seed libraries for the new pandemic environment.
  3. Carolina Canales-Valenzuela is exploring the massive shift from physical to virtual environments.
  4. Alana Gamage is building the app, Viral Solutions, to track the virus. Learn more here.
  5. Lawrence Grodeska and Judi Brow are hosting gatherings with civic engagement folks regularly.
  6. Scott Levkoff, is helping artists, performers, and event producers go virtual with Playable.agency.
  7. Marilyn Cooper, of Pushing for Peace, is collecting and donating medical supplies and making videos for kids who want to do Tai Chi at home.
  8. Eduardo Mercovich has worked with the design community in Argentina to create communications campaigns and/or guides about social distancing, working at home, helping others with emphasis on inclusion, and the availability of food delivery for certain groups.
  9. Sonia Marcus of Co-operate WNC in Asheville, North Carolina has set up and is running a system for mutual aid in Western North Carolina.
  10. Polly Whitaker started a marketplace for creatives. “So many of the creative communities have just gotten whacked at the knees with this virus, but they have the drive and energy to figure out how to adapt and I am helping it happen,” she says. She’s been putting together some heartwarming stories of creative communities supporting each other during the global COVID-19 pandemic. “Experts in the scene will be offering classes, live performances, demos, and coaching as well as making products, like costumes and BDSM toys, for sale,” she says. “We will offer goods and services that can be created while sheltering in place and it will give the artists who live gig-to-gig a lifeline to survive this crisis.”
  11. MaryJane Marcus of the Kafenia Peace Collective is hosting meetings online, gathering folks to help each other, especially with a multicultural lens.
  12. Sarah Van Exan from the Shauri Yako Community Youth Support Centre, a community-based organization working in disadvantaged communities in Nyeri, Kenya, is helping stop the rampant spread of COVID-19 in crowded informal settlements in Kenya.
  13. Dave Witzel organized 1-on-1 “speed networking” for the regeneration community.
  14. Monroe County Area Mutual Aid for COVID-19 (in Monroe County, Indiana), is fostering a network of collective solidarity that allows them to care for the most sick and vulnerable people in their community, and find strength together in order to push back against the broader social narrative of individualistic self-reliance and preparedness.
  15. The Groundbreakers Network has created a map to amplify and increase accessibility to community resources in response to COVID-19.
  16. Trebor Scholz and his Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC) has launched a class on how to start a platform cooperative with PCC partners Mondragon Cooperative. More information here.
  17. Daniel Wu and his partner worked on a crowdfund to help frontline health workers.They are using this money to purchase and pilot reusable suits to raise the standard of safety for the frontline.
  18. Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation (and Shareable adviser) has been very active including creating this awesome compilation of COVID-19 solidarity initiatives around the world.

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This article is part of our reporting on The People’s COVID-19 Response. Here are a few articles from the series:

The Response: Building Collective Resilience in the Wake of Disasters

Download our free ebook- The Response: Building Collective Resilience in the Wake of Disasters (2019)

 

Courtney Pankrat

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Courtney Pankrat |

Courtney is the editorial and communications manager at Shareable. She also works as a freelance writer and is currently based out of Denver, Colorado. Her work has appeared in Shareable,