(this list is mainly ways non-locals can donate but by extension offers a lot of resources and places to volunteer in the Twin Cities + there are specific ways to donate time under the cut which can be adjusted to your local neighborhood)
full credit to cataloo from r/minnesota [x]
🩵Immigrant support
Immigrant Defense Network – coalition of 90+ groups organizing rapid response and collecting evidence.
Immigrant Law Center of MN – free immigration legal representation to low-income immigrants and refugees.
COPAL – advocacy, organizing, phone hotline. Focus on Latine community.
Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) – education and protest organizing.
Interfaith Coalition on Immigration – advocacy, aid, events.
Monarca MN – training and phone hotline.
Unidos MN – education, protests, advocacy.
Center for Victims of Torture – advocacy and mental health services for immigrants and refugees.
International Institute of Minnesota – refugee resettlement group that provides support and legal help to vulnerable new-to-country families.
Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota – offers services to refugees, including legal aid to non-citizens.
🩵Food support
If local, food donations are welcome, otherwise monetary donations help these types of orgs source what is most needed
VEAP
La Vina Community Church/Iglesia Cristiana La Viña Burnsville
Second Harvest Heartland
Every Meal
The Food Group
Meals on Wheels MN
Find a local food shelf
🩵Mutual aid funds & community support
Community Aid Network
Twin Cities Trans Mutual Aid
Leo's Tow (Venmo @leostowingmn) is towing cars back to families if a car is stranded when someone is detained.
🩵More links
MN50501 Mutual Aid Linktree – well-organized list of various Twin Cities groups.
Mplsmutualaid Linktree – many neighborhood and individual GoFundMes listed here.
Mpls.St.Paul Magazine – see Food Drives and Fundraisers.
Stand with Minnesota – extensive list of organizations, mutual aid, and crowdfunding campaigns.
🩵Donate blood
Memorial Blood Center declared a blood emergency on Tuesday, Jan 13. MBC is the blood supplier for both tier 1 trauma hospitals in the metro area (Hennepin County Medical Center and North Memorial Health).
American Red Cross
🩵Donate food or other goods
Mpls.St.Paul Magazine – see Food Drives and Fundraisers.
Volunteer your time (under the cut)
🩵Mutual aid
Reach out to your neighbors – especially if you know they are staying home right now – and ask if they need groceries or toiletry items. Offer to pick up prescriptions, give rides, or shovel their driveway. If you know them well, bring them a treat that you know they'll enjoy. Or just ask them how they're doing and let them know you are there to support.
Connect with any of the orgs above and see if they are looking for volunteers.
Connect with a church or mosque in your area. From u/MuddieMaeSuggins: "I know a lot of regular Redditors are not religious (myself included) but like it or not this is a where a lot of community organizing happens, especially in immigrant communities."
Connect with your local school's admin office and/or their PTA. It's ok to reach out even if you don't have kids at the school. PTAs are organizing mutual aid for school families, safe rides, school observers.
🩵Activism
Find an official protest or other event via Indivisible, 50501, FREE AMERICA, or MIRAC. Students at many high schools are staging walk-outs; if your local school is doing this, reach out to school leadership or the PTA and ask how you can support as a community member.
Join the effort to stop Hilton from housing ICE by booking hotel rooms and then cancelling at the last minute. This action can be done from home! The effort is being organized by Sunrise Movement, who are telling activists to target specific hotels one-by-one. More info: SHUT DOWN HILTON
Find people in your area who are actively monitoring ICE and/or stationing themselves in high-traffic areas and ask how you can help. Check for local FB events where people are organizing and just show up.
At minimum, read the COPAL Handbook before you go out to observe. The DFL, Monarca, and other orgs have been hosting online trainings for constitutional observers (though these fill up quickly).
When you see ICE in action, start recording. Be as loud and as disruptive as possible: honk your horn, set off your car alarm, blow your whistle. Let people know that ICE is in the area. If you see someone being detained, try to get their name and a phone number to call their emergency contact.
If you do not feel comfortable observing ICE in person, there are ways you can support from home. Just ask the people who are organizing in your area. I have social anxiety, and I had never participated in any kind of political action before this past Saturday. If I can do it, you can!
Local organizers are requesting that people who help monitor ICE DO NOT participate in 1-to-1 mutual aid efforts, as these can put the families you are helping at risk.
If you have friends/acquaintances who are sympathetic but not politically active, reach out to them. Show them that they're not alone in feeling helpless. Pick a few low-commitment actions from this list and do them together.
The House votes today on H.R. 2913, the Ukraine Support Act. Ukraine has fought for five years against Russian aggression. We made a promise when they gave up their nuclear arsenal. Time to keep it.
Contact your representative now: https://resist.bot/petitions/PDOGMJ
So... we all are stressing about Trump (and let's face it... Musk really) slashing through budgets left and right for public services and such. And... it feels like there's not really anything you can do about it besides protest (which not everyone can do or is comfortable doing). But... you can!
Because here's the thing... while a lot of stuff is losing national funding, much of that stuff is actually staffed, scheduled, and budgeted at the local level. And usage by the public is usually the metric tracked in order to determine exactly how much of the local budget gets allocated. More use? More people through the door? More money. And the opposite is true. Think of a local budget like pie... and the size of slices is allocated by how many people are going to eat that slice pie.
So... wanna help fight this nonsense and ensure public services don't go away?
USE YOUR PUBLIC SERVICES.
But what does that mean? What's a public service?
Anything your tax dollars pay for. Libraries. Parks. Public Health Departments. Public schools. Many museums and such as well.
So here's some suggestions (most of which do not cost anything but time):
Use your public library. Check out books. (Even if you don't read them. Have a favorite book? Make sure it stays in circulation by giving it traffic!) Go log into a computer and use the internet for a bit. Reserve and request books/movies/music (did you know that you can get DVD sets at a library? For free? No streaming service needed!) Attend a meeting/presentation. Hell, SCHEDULE a meeting for something... maybe a game night or a book club.
Go to public parks and green spaces. Especially if there's a logbook or other way to be counted. Your presence is ammunition for the people fighting to keep green spaces from getting paved. Also take pictures of yourself here and tag those spaces on social media. This gives them free images of real people to use when they're making their budget presentations and writing grant requests.
Look up your local health department and see what services you can access at your income level. Often they offer free or discounted vaccines, health checkups, and cancer screenings. And if you're hemming and hawing about whether or not you need it, your traffic will ensure someone who very much does need their services has access. Call and find out when they're slow (my uneducated guess is that traffic picks up around the start of school and during cold/flu season) so you aren't competing with people trying to get sports physicals and vaccines for their kids.
Listen to and interact with your local public radio and TV station. This one is pretty self explanatory. Log onto their website and stream their programming. Make music requests. Look up stuff on their community calendar. Even if you aren't into their programming, they're valuable community resources for communicating local events and such, especially during an emergency. Oh... and donate money if you can. They really depend on that stuff... especially now.
Use public transit. This one is pretty self explanatory too, but might cost a little money. This includes public rent-a-bikes if they're around. Even if you don't need it, use it sometimes. It will keep it there for others who might depend on it.
I'm sure there's a bunch that I'm missing, but in my area, this is a pretty good starting place. Feel free to add on!
want to signal boost this article from Waging Nonviolence, because it's doing a lot to help me emotionally navigate the Trump reelection
TL;DR
Trust yourself - honor your own needs, your own emotions
Find others who you trust - fascism and autocracy thrive on social isolation, despair, and overwhelm
Grieve - to move out of shock, be specific about your griefs, name them, and acknowledge them
Release that which you cannot change - trying to react to and fix every problem in the world is bad for your health and is bad political strategy. Especially be careful about posting outrage on social media, a tool that can be overused.
Find your path - see below image ("Your path may not be clear right now. That’s okay. There will be plenty of opportunities to join the resistance.")
Do not obey in advance, do not self-censor - "Political space you don't use, you lose." If you aren't a minor and it is physically safe for you, be loud, be public, be an ally. do not hide who you are now because you anticipate "crackdowns" in the future.
Reorient your political map - "Are we interested in engaging with people unhappy with the regime — whether because they love the current institutions or are unhappy with Trump’s policies on them? Are we able to tell a story that explains how we got here — and do political education? Or are we only interested in maintaining ideological purity and preaching to our own choir?"
Get real about power - Trump will not be stopped by us pressuring elites to do something. we need organized civil disobedience.
Handle fear, make violence rebound - political violence is not as common as fear of violence. refuse to be intimidated by threats.
Envision a positive future - we will get Trump out. there will be an after. we cannot let them tell us what the future will be.
If you are in search of a New Year's resolution, here are a few modest suggestions for pro-democracy Americans.
Get one person registered to vote every week between now and early October. You can count people who have moved since the last election and need to register at their new address.
If you live in a state without a Senate election this cycle, "adopt" a Democratic Senate candidate in a state with a hotly contested race and support him/her with contributions and online visibility.
Display your support for Democratic candidates. Buttons, stickers, and yard signs all add to perception of momentum.
Support local NPR and PBS outlets. Also worthy of your help are smaller independent local news organizations which do not take orders from far right media moguls.
Quit social media platforms run by amoral or immoral billionaires who are only interested in accumulating massive wealth and undermining civil society.
The vast majority of states have elections for state legislature in 2024. Volunteer your time in local campaigns for state legislature and urge like-minded people to pay more attention to state government – which has been badly neglected by liberals this century.
On that last point: If you don't know your districts' legislators, this site provides their names, party, and district designations. It helps to have your ZIP+4 handy.
Find Your Legislators
Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.
