People United Albany Park - Community Response

The Centro Autónomo—in collaboration with the Party for Socialism & Liberation (PSL), local volunteers, and other concerned community members and social movement organizers—have come together to form Pueblo Unido de Albany Park | People United of Albany Park (PUAP). We organized to help alleviate the heightened problems of food insecurity that many are facing due to the record number of people unemployed in this country as a result of the pandemic, a large number of whom were excluded from the federal stimulus package.

This GoFundMe Campaign was created to provide food and supplies for undocumented and documented immigrant individuals and families of Albany Park. A local grocery store called Chicago Produce has been helping us stretch our donation funds and prepare bags of carefully selected and sorted groceries at a wonderful price; and a local church called Our Lady of Mercy, also lovingly known by locals as “La Merced” is collaborating with the use of some of their outside space and tables to set up a pick-up location for the groceries.

On Sunday, June 14th of 2020, we had our first distribution and it went very well. We started out small, but were able to hand out over 40 bags of groceries, and interest has grown and more Albany Park community members have been getting involved and showing their solidarity since then as well. For our second distribution on Sunday, July 12th, we doubled that and handed out 80 bags of food! Considering all of the recent events and of course the pandemic situation in general, we have also been inviting local residents to share their stories and express their voices as they come to pick up groceries or participate in the distribution. We will be planning our next distribution event shortly. We hope to continue reaching as many community members as possible!

Suggested donation: $100, but any amount helps. Please, donate what you can! Your donations will go directly to the hands of our community members, who oftentimes have fears of repercussions from receiving support.

We will be accepting donations of shelf-stable foods in addition to monetary donations. If you’re interested in getting involved with PUAP, beyond supporting our GoFundMe campaign, please contact us:

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We must stand in solidarity to help each other build a better society! With this initiative and our collective actions against injustice, we have the opportunity to sculpt spaces of critically conscious contagious hope starting right here with everyone in the Albany Park Community!

Don't forget to support housing/rent relief by sharing your story or posting #CancelTheRents on social media. To find an action near you visit canceltherents.org

At the Centro Autónomo, we join forces with women, men, young people, children, and neighbors with whom we share hopes, dreams, and ideas, where in the form of a Caracol we dialogue, unlearn and recognize ourselves with people coming from below. Walking around in a circular way, we continue to look for spaces where our voices are heard. This space remains as a point of reference for dialogue, communication, respect, solidarity, and resistance.