How Mutual Aid Can Address Student Needs on Campus

A call for action to organize the Mutual Aid Collective of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Joe Kyle

We are undeniably in the midst of a myriad of crises. Some of these crises, of course, have emerged relatively recently. The second Trump administration’s opening weeks of attacks on the rights of the marginalized, the autocratic consolidation of political power within the hands of the presidency, and the looming threat of funding cut-offs for countless social programs all immediately come to mind. Additionally, many other crises have been going on well before January 20th, 2025. An October 2024 Zillow report found that close to 60% of young adults in America are “rent-burdened”, with Gen Z carrying the heaviest load of said burden, and according to the Urban Institute, approximately 36% of young adults are experiencing food insecurity. Perhaps you or someone you know is experiencing the brunt of these crises, be they new or old.

Regardless of the longevity or scale of crises being faced by Americans today, I would argue the solutions to all of these various issues rests within the local participation of ordinary people. Our responses to crises will arguably be at their best when communities organize themselves into local, democratic collectives in order to fight back when existing institutions are too anemic or too apathetic to address today’s issues. If the federal government is going to work to repress gender identities, we can step up to provide gender-affirming care and resources directly to our neighbors. If reigning economic powers are going to keep our wages low and the cost of basic needs high, then we can pool our resources together in order to distribute said needs to each other far more efficiently, equitably, and sustainably than top-down institutions ever could. Put succinctly, if existing systems aren’t going to help us or our communities, then it is up to us to work together and help ourselves.

Enter mutual aid, generally thought of as community members cooperating together to organize networks in which they coordinate the distribution of resources and assistance to each other. I like to describe mutual aid in practice as people democratically determining the distribution of goods and services and how to best meet their community needs amongst themselves, as opposed to relying upon profitability to determine what goes where. Intuitively, mutual aid makes sense. We know better than executive boards what the economic needs of ourselves and our neighbors are. By having direct democracy be the basis for distribution decisions in a mutual aid network, affordability is eliminated as a barrier for people getting what they need. In a mutual aid network, if you need a good that your neighbor owns and no longer has any use for, you receive said good for free—no need to worry about bankrupting yourself in the process. Furthermore, mutual aid is not new. It’s long been practiced by Indigenous kinship groups, such as the Diné principle of K’é emphasizing collective solidarity reciprocity amongst the members of a clan, and was a common strategy implemented by communities during the COVID-19 pandemic to get resources to people at a time when many of us were out of work and couldn’t leave our homes. Indeed, from the Sanctuary Supply Depot collecting donations of basic survival supplies to provide to our unhoused neighbors to the North Country Food Alliance sharing healthy food with local communities, it doesn’t take long to find an abundance of mutual aid resources and networks in the Twin Cities.

A group of students right here at the University of Minnesota, myself included, are currently looking to add yet another network to the Twin Cities community. We are organizing the Mutual Aid Collective of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, right here on campus as a student group. Anyone is welcome to join, no matter how small your needs are or how much you can provide. We hope to address crises at all scales, from fighting for our rights to helping make daily goods more affordable for our neighbors, and regardless of whether you’re looking for assistance or to volunteer time and resources, we need everyone interested in this project to join in order to make it as successful as possible. So if building democratic community power here on campus sounds like something beneficial or fulfilling to you or someone you know, please reach out to the Mutual Aid Collective, either by following us on Instagram (@mutual_aid_collective_umn_tc) or by joining our Discord server. We look forward to getting to work with you in order to build a better world!