Today we’d like to introduce you to Kendra Clark.
Hi Kendra, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Hostess City Mutual Aid was created as a response to Hurricane Helene. After Helene, so many people in Savannah were without power and food. People had trees down and damage to their homes, but like in many natural disasters, it brought the community together. Those with power were offering up a place to charge phones or get a cup of coffee. Neighbors with grills offered to cook food for people before it went bad. Businesses opened up to be true third spaces. Some even offered up free goods. That is what mutual aid is all about. The community taking care of one another.
A few days into the aftermath, the Savannah DSA had a mutual aid meeting to talk about resources and needs and how to help and respond. During that discussion, a common theme that came up was the fact that there were so many resources but no centralized location to find information on those resources. And from that Hostess City Mutual Aid was born, a place to promote and bring awareness to the mutual aid efforts that happen every day in Savannah, a place to find the resources.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road has been mostly smooth. The biggest struggle is that as a singular person sometimes life gets busy so I’ve missed posting a few weeks. I hope in the near future to expand the team and bring others on to help. Having a team would be great so things don’t fall through the gaps and so its existence isn’t solely tied to one person.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Hostess City Mutual Aid is a platform to promote and share the mutual aid events occurring in Savannah on a weekly basis. For those unfamiliar, Mutual Aid is when people in a community come together to help each other and share resources, skills, and support. It’s about coming together to meet each other’s needs because we know that our current systems won’t. Everyone gives what they can and takes what they need.
We have a lot of great people and organizations in Savannah who help provide mutual aid on a regular basis. There’s Savannah’s Free Market in Daffin Park each month where the price of everything is free. The Savannah DSA does a weekly mutual aid sharing where you can share a meal, donate food and resources, and get food and resources. Your Space has a community care closet and regularly hosts clothing swaps and skill sharing workshops. Friends of Urban Nature (F.U.N.) is hosting community cleanups monthly to get trash out of our waterways and communities to help create a greener and cleaner Savannah. We also have a multitude of community gardens in Savannah, but Tatemville Community Garden is going beyond just growing fruits and vegetables. They are also creating a space for families to learn together.
So the thing I’m most proud is being able to amplify the work these organizations, and many others, are doing.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
When it comes to getting involved in your community and learning how to be more civically engaged, just find the people doing the work and provide support to that work. There are so many people doing incredible work to support and uplift the people of Savannah. As you begin to meet those people and starting helping with the work, your network and community and knowledge will grow.
That’s because the best networking is just building relationships and building community. I ran a women’s networking meetup for 4 years and that was the message I always preached. If i needed an accountant or a massage, I was much more likely to call one of the women I built relationships with over those 4 years, than a person who gave me their business card after a two minute conversation. It might take a bit more time and effort on the front end, but creating that community can be life changing. I guess that’s a theme with the things I do. It’s all about community.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hostesscitymutualaid
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hostesscitymutualaid
