Responding with Power in the South and the North

This week, we helped communities stay powered through Winter Storm Fern. We also responded to a different kind of outage in our home state of Minnesota: the loss of safety and justice under the abuse of power.

Winter Storm Fern Power Outages

Ahead of Winter Storm Fern, our Appalachia team opened a battery library at our warehouse in Mars Hill, North Carolina, and preemptively supported the Buncombe County Emergency Operations Center, Black Mountain Fire Department, Swannanoa Resilience Hub, and Swannanoa Grassroots Alliance with power for communications at warming centers.

In Lake Providence, Louisiana, a small town in the Mississippi Delta where ice toppled trees and transmission lines, we partnered with Together Louisiana to power a warming shelter, heated blankets, and home health devices like feeding tubes, medical beds, and oxygen machines.

Power can protect communities. It can also terrorize them.

Responding to Minneapolis Power Abuse

For the past month, a different type of storm has affected communities across Minnesota. The grid is still on, but families are sheltering in place, armed masked men are threatening civilians, and two U.S. citizens have been killed while exercising their First and Second Amendment rights. The number of U.S. citizens wrongfully arrested, detained and forcibly removed from Minnesota is unknown. A mutual aid network of lawyers, social workers and neighbors scramble to track the disappeared and support those intimidated into hiding. 

This week, we partnered with reporters at the Sahan Journal to provide portable batteries and support the power of the First Amendment through local journalism. We also stocked a cell phone battery library for mutual aid networks providing mobile support services and resources for people released from detention.

Footprint Project was founded in Minneapolis and we proudly support the power of peaceful resistance in Minnesota. 

Where power is used to harm, we stand with communities building networks to protect the vulnerable. When power is abused, we stand with communities standing up for themselves. If power is protected by lies, we stand with the truth.

We stand firmly in opposition to racism, tyranny, the cruel and unlawful detainment of human beings, and the killing of innocent people who stand with us. 

We may not be able to respond to every disaster or downed power line, but we will always support power in the hands of the people.