KFTC members build solidarity and mutual support in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis | Kentuckians For The Commonwealth

KFTC members build solidarity and mutual support in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis

Kentuckians For The Commonwealth leaders and staff are mindful of the many challenges and fears facing our members and communities in this rapidly unfolding health and economic and political crisis. Without a doubt, this is a critical time for physical distancing. But with care and intention, it also offers us the chance to form deeper social and community connections.

KFTC is committed to building solidarity and mutual care while we demand swift and sweeping actions from our governments and corporations. As KFTC’s chairperson Cassia Herron often says, “We are it. We are all we’ve got. Let’s go.”

We are Kentuckians. We choose each other. Our love and support pour out to all members of our KFTC family and broader community. We are deeply concerned for our elders and for ALL people with physical and mental health challenges or disabilities.

We worry for our youth and families whose day care, schools and campuses have closed; for those whose income or jobs are at risk; for our undocumented neighbors and family members; and for our loved ones who are incarcerated. We lift up all people harmed by poverty, racism, LGBTQ+ discrimination, immigration status, domestic violence, and/or disabilities, as they are often the hardest hit during a crisis.

We are holding in our hearts all health care providers, emergency and service workers, care-givers, single parents, people living alone, folks without secure or safe housing, shift and gig economy workers, small business owners, and all whose security and health are now threatened. 

Below are some resources and ideas we’ve gathered from a wide range of sources to support safe, creative, and spirit-filled organizing in the time of COVID-19. If you have additional resources you’d like to share, please drop them in the comments or email them to [email protected].  

Ways to take action locally

1) Mutual Aid Networks 

Across Kentucky, many people are self-organizing mutual aid networks. These locally-led efforts are often sustained by Black and Brown folks, young people, low-income and working class people, immigrants, and others who are most harmed by our economic and political systems and hardest hit when disaster strikes. (Before starting anything new, be sure to seek out, get behind, and support existing efforts!)

Louisville Mutual Aid Intake Form 

Lexington Mutual Aid Intake Form and a list of Take Out and Food Delivery options in Lexington

Southern Kentucky Mutual Aid Intake Form

Eastern Kentucky Mutual Aid Intake Form and Donation Form

Ways to support local restaurants and their workers in Kentucky

Indigenous Mutual Aid intake form; includes a link to contribute to mutual aid fund

COVID-19 relief fund for Navajo and Hopi families and for the Havasupai Tribe

Resources and ways to support artists and free-lance workers (nationally)

Emergency resources for artists (Kentucky Arts Council)

2) Volunteer from home to help KFTC register and inform Kentucky voters!

KFTC is developing a range of creative, effective, and safe ways to reach out to voters before the June 23rd primary election, and we need your help! 

Sign up now if you are willing to volunteer to connect with voters from home.

We’ll follow up to help you get started making phone calls to voters, using social media, writing postcards, and taking other meaningful and safe actions.

3) Make your voice heard (from home) in the Kentucky General Assembly and in Congress

The KY General Assembly is continuing to meet (as of March 17), while members of the public have been excluded from the Capitol and Capitol Annex. That’s not good for our democracy! But it is still important to make your voice heard. 

Check out KFTC’s bill-tracker to learn more about the status of important bills. Then call the toll-free message line (800-372-7181) to leave personal messages for your state representative and senator, and any other members of the General Assembly. (Be sure to thank the good people answering the phones!) You can also email any legislator at [email protected].

4) Share your story. Tell us how this emergency is affecting you and the ones you love.

In this moment, the struggle to make ends meet is even harder. Just how unfair some of our state policies are will continue to be more obvious as workplaces, childcare facilities, and other important institutions shut down. Some of us have a great deal of knowledge about the impacts that our current policies have on our daily lives. We have had to deal with unaffordable housing, not having access to health care, and not making a living wage even before COVID-19. For some of us, this is all new territory that we are trying to make sense of. This pandemic takes a huge toll on everyone, and especially folks who were already trying to make ends meet. 

Share out about what you’re going through and about what would make it easier for all Kentuckians to meet their basic needs now and always. Contact your local KFTC organizer or our Economic Justice Organizer, Alexa Hatcher, at [email protected]. 

Visionary demands and petitions

Below is a partial collection of statements, letters, and demands developed by state and local allies and social justice movement formations.

  • Friends of the Earth has demanded that Congress must not bail out fossil fuel industries. (KFTC signed on.)

Important Kentucky-related COVID-19 news

Resources about organizing during the outbreak

These are just a few of many resources that have been shared by allies and organizers around the U.S.