Cache Valley Mutual Aid creates a network of care to meet community needs. We collaborate to provide resources, education, and connections within Cache Valley. Our services are completely free and available to anyone, across all circumstances and identities.
How does CVMA operate?
CVMA consists of members of the community who provide each other with resources, education, care, and connection. We are always open to feedback and change.
Who can Join?
Anyone, across all circumstances and identities
Who can request aid?
Anyone, across all circumstances and identities
What services does CVMA provide?
- Item and food requests
- Financial support for housing expenses, medical bills, childcare, mental health, and food
- Transportation to medical appointments
- Referrals to social workers, other helping professionals, and community resources
- Political education
- Assistance with applying to jobs, scholarships, and other applications
- Language services
How is CVMA structured?
CVMA has weekly planning meetings that are open to all members. We make decisions as a group unilaterally.
What are CVMA’s values?
We are anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and anti-fascist.
We are queer affirming.
We support decolonization and land back for all Indigenous peoples.
We want abolition of the prison-industrial complex.
We want and are working towards a sustainable world.
How We Organize
If you want to get involved we’re organized into committees, each dealing with an aspect of our activism and organization. Click here to get onboarded so we can get to know you and we can start organizing together!
Planning Committee
CVMA has weekly planning meetings that are open to all members. During these meetings, we discuss group goals as well as the work of our various sub-committees. The Planning Committee has a private channel on the Slack—you just need to come to the meeting to be invited! This setting is to ensure greater security for sensitive requests, to better negotiate labor across the group, and to mitigate risk for our vulnerable community members.
Flyers and Social Medias
For our events we need flyers and posts to spread the word, so we also have a committee that makes our event flyers and run the posts on our socials!! This group works on flyers for posts and physical flyers to post around town and online, as well as distributes the flyers by hanging them in local spaces.
Food Distribution
CVMA works through this committee to redistribute leftovers, extra produce, and any other food stuff that people are able and willing to share with others in our community. You can bring extra food to any of our events or post in Slack when you have extras! Folks can request food via the Request Aid form here. We also work with Cache Fridge to put up food pantries/fridges for people all across the valley. Please talk to us if you are interested in helping get Cache Fridge up and running!
As part of food distribution, we host a community dinner once at the end of each month (last Friday of each month)! The committee brainstorms meal ideas, finds recipes, and manages the sheet where folks sign up to contribute to support this dinner through. You can support community dinners by bringing food, cooking, setting up, or cleaning up! Please come join us for dinner and check out the calendar for our next dinner!
Skill Share
Our skill shares are all about sharing expertise and gaining new experiences! They take place twice a month on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays. The committee gathers skill ideas and needs from the community, reaches out to folks offering those skills, and then plans the skill share events. Some of our past skill shares so far have included: investing, resumes, mending, sourdough, and more happening all the time!! We would love to see you there as a participant, skill sharer, or committee member. Check out the calendar for information on the next event!
Political Education
CVMA hosts a political education event once a month (4th Wednesday) where people can come to learn more about the ideas and values that back mutual aid and revolutionary movements from the past! The committee works to get resources for people to read before events and takes charge in planning the events. We are always striving to learn more and share what we can so please join us at our events!! You can join as someone who helps plans the events, someone who shares educational material, or someone who comes and learns from others. Check out the calendar for information on the next event!
Onboarding
We also have an onboarding committee! Members in this group meet with new folks who are interested in joining mutual aid—whether they’ve attended an event or expressed interest via our sign up form. Onboarding gives folks a familiar face to connect with and orients new folks to how our mutual aid network is structured.
Arts and Zines
This is a space for folks to support each other in creating art and zines, including a space to share what you’ve created. Zines exist to share info on topics covered at our political education events, at our skill shares, and about general and specific mutual aid topics. If arts or zines interest you, we’d love to see you in this group!
Legislative Actions
This group is interested in engaging with the existing political structure to make what change is possible! Folks come here to share ideas on how to interact with local and state lawmakers to advocate for legislation that helps our community and against legislation that hurts our community. During the state legislative sessions, folks share bill tracking and even coordinate rides to the state capitol to speak in person about critical legislation. We’d love to have your support if legislative actions interests you!
Fundraising and Finance
This committee works to raise and distribute mutual aid funds! This includes planning events (like concerts and yard sales) to raise money and responding to monetary aid requests. The finance and fundraising committee also keeps records of money coming into and going out of CVMA and makes this information available to the group on a regular basis. This is useful, in part, to demonstrate how much money CVMA spends on various activities, such as request fulfillment and community dinners. In the true spirit of mutual aid, no one person decides how funds are used. If you want to plan future fundraising events or are interested in helping fulfill aid requests, this is the space for you!