On the first Friday of every month, the Fine Arts Flea Market hosts an event in downtown Las Cruces that spotlights local artists and small businesses.
On Sept. 5, the Mutual Aid and Solidarity Fair joined the flea market event to host a public interface for people to connect and learn about ways they can strengthen the community.
The Mutual Aid and Solidarity Fair was made up of grassroots organizations that vary from student-founded groups, community support, and activism. These organizations are built to focus on local issues and aim to raise awareness of community concerns.
Nisha Meccano, an NMSU employee, said grassroots organizations are important to Las Cruces because they support mutual aid efforts and community solidarity.
A highlighted effort at the fair was the Really Really Free Market. RRFM provides free items like clothes, toys, books, resources, coffee, furniture, household items, and additional aids that promote the group’s values of “love and solidarity.”
The RRFM holds events on the first Saturday of every month at Peace Lutheran Church in Las Cruces. They welcome anyone to attend, volunteer, or donate.
“The practice of mutual aid is a method of working with the community and providing resources for the community that differs from charity work, it’s a relationship,” Dylan Davis, a member of the New Mexico State University’s Students for Justice in Palestine, said.
Davis is an NMSU student who helped start the Students for Justice in Palestine and the RRFM, which recently partnered with an organization called Food Not Bombs.
Food Not Bombs is a worldwide initiative focused on ending hunger and supporting actions of social movements. Food Not Bombs in Las Cruces provides healthy meals every first and third Sunday at Klein Park. Any leftovers are distributed to unhoused people around the city. The organization also provides items such as Narcan, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, pads, and Plan Bs.
All their resources are donated, making it a “volunteer grassroots organization” as defined by Davis.
Fellow organization, Built on Neighborly Knowing [B.O.N.K], is a group in Las Cruces that moves to build a welcoming queer community. Molly S., a member of B.O.N.K. House.
Molly works with the group putting together park cleanups, justice readings, and free markets. B.O.N.K. also supplies resources for the community and creates a sober space.
Molly said her first experience at a B.O.N.K. event was like being at home, where the people and celebration reflected who she is as a person. Molly said she encourages youth to keep looking into their communities to find places and groups where they can feel “at home.”
“There are more places out there than you think,” she said.
Also at the event, Allison Claire and Jonathan Delgado came together to promote Las Cruces Can [LC Can], a community action group dedicated to protecting vulnerable community members through education, mutual aid, direct action, and maintaining solidarity with other local grassroots organizations.
LC Can is a community action network committed to informing the community of Las Cruces on local issues, mutual aid, and the milestones being made by grassroots organizations.
The group’s current work and outreach are aimed toward stopping the development of Project Jupiter, a data center project anticipated to be built in Dona Ana County. Claire expressed that LC Can is concerned about the lack of information released about this project. She shared that economic and environmental impact studies should be made available to the public.
“We need transparency. If they don’t do an environmental study, then they need to tell us why,” Claire said. “All we are asking for is a minimum of 60-to-90-day delay on the county commission voting on the issuance of the industrial revenue bonds. We are asking for a full public release of all documents, which is standard procedure.”
For dates and locations of community meetings on Project Jupiter and updates from LC, click on the link here.
The Mutual Aid & Solidarity Fair served as a platform for community engagement with groups dedicated to volunteerism, social activism, and strengthening bonds. The event spotlighted the growing work of these organizations and their upcoming events and efforts.
