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I admin a local "pantry" group on Facebook, for food sharing. Basically, if you have food (or other stuff, but mostly food) that you don't want for whatever reason you can post it in the group and give it away. It stops good being thrown out and wasted, and helps people who might be going hungry otherwise.

Tonight a woman put up a post talking about how she's a young mum with two small boys, and that they were out of food until Thursday. She talked about how she was embarrassed to ask but really needed help.

Two women answered the post, offering food. The OP explained that she didn't drive and would it be ok of people dropped things at her place, so I offered to drive around and collect the things people were giving and drop them at her place. I don't have spare food I can help with, but I have a car and I have time.

The second woman I collected from was someone I actually met at the beginning of the year, when she posted in the group and asked for help with cleaning supplies.. I gave her a bunch of things I had tucked away under the sink and didn't use.

She had told me then about how her partner had just been diagnosed with cancer. She told me tonight how she'd stayed in the group because she was waiting for the opportunity to help someone else because we'd helped her so much. She's doing better now, and it made her feel happy she could help someone else.

When I dropped the food these two women had given to the OP, she talked to me about how her partner had died suddenly the year before, leaving her with two young boys.. both with autism and ADHD. She said she's 31 and doesn't have her life together yet. I told her I'm 50 and mines a mess too. I told her that one of the women who had offered food was someone the group had helped previously, and how happy she'd been to be able to help as well. We talked about how community means not only helping people, but also being helped. We talked about how this means that our communities are stronger and prosper together. She's looking forward to being able to help someone else too.

This is how mutual aid works. No matter how dark things get, we can find hope in community.

#MutualAid #Indigenous #Aboriginal #CommunityCare #CommunityNotCops #RegionalAustralia