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Herbal Mutual Aid Network

Fiscal Host: Earth Arts

A peer-to-peer network providing free herbal care and education to marginalized people

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+ 11

Top financial contributors

1
Guest

$1,000 USD since May 2023

2
Sean Roland

$500 USD since May 2023

3
Shui

$350 USD since May 2023

4
Sarah

$201.8 USD since Aug 2023

5
Guest

$100 USD since Jun 2023

6
Guest

$100 USD since Jun 2023

7
Guest

$95 USD since Jul 2023

8
Will Harris-Braun

$50 USD since May 2023

9
Moth Morgenson

$44 USD since May 2023

10
Will Becker

$20 USD since May 2023

11
kate devine

$20 USD since May 2023

12
Sophie Becker

$20 USD since Jun 2023

13
Portia Maung

$20 USD since Feb 2024

14
Darra

$20 USD since Nov 2024

15
Guest

$4 USD since Jul 2024

Herbal Mutual Aid Network is all of us

Our contributors 18

Thank you for supporting Herbal Mutual Aid Network.

Guest

$1,000 USD

Sean Roland

$500 USD

Shui

$350 USD

Sarah

$202 USD

Guest

$100 USD

Guest

$100 USD

Guest

$95 USD

Moth Morgenson

$44 USD

Budget


Transparent and open finances.

+$20.00USD
Completed
Contribution #809670
-$75.59 USD
Paid
Reimbursement #162256
Reimbursement #158666
$
Today’s balance

$86.63 USD

Total raised

$2,333.83 USD

Total disbursed

$2,247.20 USD

Estimated annual budget

$44.00 USD

About


To request care, please visit our website. :~) 




H.M.A.N. provides free herbal care and education to marginalized people.

We are a peer-to-peer mutual care Network of herbalists, educators, farmers, artists, care workers, organizers, donors and care recipients.

As we create resources for those struggling to access care, we center the needs of people of color, trans, queer and disabled people.

In distribution, we partner with POC-led community organizations to support the work they've already been doing in the communities they've built.

We are a fiscally sponsored grassroots organization, funded by tax-free donations.





"Wellness" is a $4.2 trillion industry and it’s not designed to get care to the people who need it most.

We believe...

✿ In the face of systemic oppression, equity should be an essential pillar of any business or practice providing care. “Wellness” without equity is hoarding resources.

✿ Working together as a collective, we can channel our creativity toward building mutual networks of care—connecting people with the resources they need right now

Mutual aid is when everyday people get together to meet each other’s needs, with the shared understanding that the systems we live in are not meeting our needs and that we can meet them together, right now, without having to pressure power structures to do the right thing. Mutual aid is an idea and practice that is based on the principles of direct action, cooperation, mutual understanding, and solidarity. Mutual aid is not charity, but the building and continuing of new social relations where people give what they can and get what they need, outside of unjust systems of power. — Joel Izlar UGA Social Work


 
Our mission is to sustain a mutual care ecosystem that centers the needs of marginalized people 

by:

✿ Hiring and promoting the work of marginalized artists and care workers, enabling peer-to-peer care at no cost to those needing support

✿ Building a dimensional platform for conversation around care and healing, centering marginalized voices

✿ Listening to the communities we serve and adapting our structure and offerings as needs shift over time

✿ Maintaining an energetically sustainable operating structure that centers the needs of our collaborators—avoiding burnout + maximizing joy—with the guiding objective of doing the most with the least. Impact over effort. Continually seeking ways to build mutuality + interdependence into our work, we will grow the scale our efforts while cultivating ease.






Currently our work consists in

➛ Filling our "Free Shop" with herbal formulas, classes and other care resources, to be made accessible to our entire community of individual care recipients

➛ Creating and distributing our “Free Brand” of herbal formulas—designed in collaboration with herbalists whose identities reflect the communities we serve. 

➛ Commissioning Black artists for design and other creative work related to our initiatives.

➛ Building an Herbal Mutual Aid Garden where we will grow herbs for our free in-house formulas, to donate and to sell as a means of fundraising in partnership with Gentle Time Farm—a trans led cooperatively owned vegetable farm local to our studio in the Mahicantuck Valley of Upstate NY 

➛ Supporting existing Black and Indigenous led community organizations (local to Hudson and coast-to-coast) by providing herbal formulas, bulk herbs and educational resources to share with the communities they've already been building.

➛ Developing free in-person peer-to-peer education + free herbal pick-up days for low income community members local to our Studio in Hudson, NY

➛ Developing a medicine making residency where herbalists from the communities we serve can formulate with plants from our Mutual Aid Garden in our sanitary commercial herb processing Studio in Hudson, NY at no cost. 



Future projects include:

➛Creating a live online database network of herb growers + mutual aid groups organized by local region, where we can all stay connected on current projects + asks–a tool for seeking care *and* collaborating on all of our herbal mutual aid initiatives, coast-to-coast



 
H.M.A.N. was founded on May 30th, 2020 in the heat of the uprising in response to George Floyd's murder and an ongoing crisis of racial violence + injustice.


Our team

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Let’s get the ball rolling!

News from Herbal Mutual Aid Network

Updates on our activities and progress.

We're Officially Relaunched!

Herbal Mutual Aid Network is officially back! As of today, our 3rd birthday (!),...
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Published on May 30, 2023 by Remy Maelen

Where We've Come From + Where We're Going!

Hi Community :~)) So excited to share this timeline with you. Here's all that we have accomplished so far over these last few years and where we are headed next, with your support! Immense thanks to our entire community of collaborators, ca...
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Published on May 19, 2023 by Remy Maelen

Our Mind Map!

Hello Teammates + Collaborators! Slowly adding each of you to our network here on Open Collective as we prepare to reveal this page to the public. We're currently setting up meetings with potential funders and grant writers—hoping to secure...
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Published on April 14, 2023 by Remy Maelen