Hi neighbors,

Thank you so much for generously giving to support your fellow Uptown neighbors! It made a big difference in helping the group distribute food and cash to neighbors in need. UBPSN came together to meet the crisis of the emerging pandemic in March 2020. Much has changed since then and, as of this month, we are wrapping up our work as a group.  

It's not easy for neighbors who started out as strangers in a crisis to come together and build a sustainable all-volunteer group. We have been consistently supporting about 30 households with personalized groceries or cash for the past year and have been a resource for dozens more neighbors. Over the last 18+ months, we adapted to a changing pandemic landscape and tried out different ways of working in order to be as horizontal, inclusive, and in line with our mutual aid, anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and abolitionist values as we could. While we certainly made a difference in our neighborhood, learned a lot, and formed important connections, we never quite lived up to those values in practice and struggled to create sustainable systems. Over the past 6 months, we saw volunteer capacity waning drastically, so it became clear that the best and most accountable next step would be to end UBPSN. We plan to distribute our remaining funds directly and evenly among the households we have been supporting. 

However, there is still great need in our neighborhood and there are other groups working to address that. We encourage you to put your time and energy into supporting them, especially the Bryn Mawr Warming Center. See this document for more info: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qHi7FUDxs3kMEQKLBYVrP1aU5P7QahWbcR1sytnHl4o/edit?usp=sharing

If you want to stay in touch, please email [email protected] with your phone number to be added to our Signal thread (you will need to install the free private messaging app “Signal” on your phone).