HYATTSVILLE, Md.—Hundreds of brown bags filled to the brim with produce and canned goods lined the walls of a packed donation center in Hyattsville. The front door was left open, welcoming everyone as volunteers at Rt. 1 Mutual Aid swarmed into the building, carrying boxes of food and toiletries to fill the growing number of bags.
Joyful chatter filled the narrow hallway connecting the donation rooms as volunteers buzzed around, bonding over their shared mission: to help their community.
“Our immigrant neighbors are still going to have this issue of getting detained and being scared to go to the grocery store,” said Stephanie DeLorenzo, co-founder of the group. “Sometimes, they don’t even have the ability to because their car has been detained as well.”
Rt. 1 Mutual Aid is a branch of the non-profit organization Route 1 Corridor Indivisible that focuses on distributing food to community members in need. The branch originally started in October as a response to the government shutdown and revocation of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, but grew into something bigger.
Trish Roberts, co-founder of Rt. 1 Mutual Aid, found that even after the government shutdown ended, the community’s need for food and available resources was still very high. The non-profit began partnering with local groups to “connect with other org[anization]s to fill the gaps where [they] were needed,” she said.
While Rt. 1 Mutual Aid has many tight community partnerships, both co-founders emphasized the importance of partnering with immigrant organizations. One of the main organizations that the group works with focuses on immigrant rights, distributing food and other necessities to local families impacted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns.
”We collect all the groceries and actually pack up the groceries effectively, like bags of whatever comes in, then it gets delivered to families that have directly been impacted by ICE,” Roberts said, tears welling in her eyes. “[There are] teenagers who are now legal guardians of younger siblings and it’s these that are arguably the most vulnerable populations within our community. They’re neighbors.”
The organization has rapidly grown, with leaders scrambling to find bigger spaces to organize all of their donations. To help combat this and make donating easier for busy community members, the pair launched the porch ambassadors program.
The program allows people’s porches, workplaces and community spaces to be turned into convenient donation centers. Each ambassador can post to neighborhood listservs, collect donations and deliver the items weekly, according to Roberts.
For some organizations, however, it is easier to send volunteers directly to the donation sites.
St. Camillus Church, located in Silver Spring, Md., is another partnership with Rt. 1 Mutual Aid, volunteer Grace Hayden told CNS.
Hayden, a senior Spanish major at the University of Maryland, has been volunteering for the organization since its start in October, fulfilling the church’s special request and intake positions for specific family needs.
“We’ve helped people get back to their families. I see, like, direct results,” the 23-year-old said. ”Not to be cliche, but it helps me sleep at night.”
The program brings community members of all ages and backgrounds together, a secondary goal in Roberts’ foundation of Rt. 1 Mutual Aid, she said.
Volunteer Anne O’Donnell felt a calling to help her community when she moved back to Prince George’s County nearly two years ago. The 62-year-old is “a core member” of Rt. 1 Mutual Aid and has been pleasantly surprised by the rapid growth in donations and volunteers.
“People are hungry to help,” she said, passionately. “People are hungry. And people are hungry to help.”
Through all the chaos of organizing donations, O’Donnell likes to focus on the smaller things that need to get done, like lining the overfilled, plastic shelves with labels to make drop-offs go smoother.
“It doesn’t take long, but it’s very rewarding,” she said, through a smile. “Everybody brings some skill or talent, and it all comes together.”
Seeing so many community members eager to donate and support their neighbors leaves the co-founders astonished.
“It honestly means everything,” Roberts said. “There’s this whole community of people I didn’t know existed!”