RICHMOND & SUNSET CREWS

Richmond & Sunset Crews is a new project of SF Bay Mutual Aid. Its purpose is to help neighbors in the Richmond and Sunset find each other, work together, and build deep community. We will do that through a Signal group, a website, and social events, but none of those are where the community building will actually happen. That will happen in crews: the meals, the rides, the conversations, the decisions, the showing up.

A crew is small. Three to eight people, small enough that everyone can sit around one kitchen table. The name comes from the microsolidarity movement, and a group this size has four things going for it:

• Scheduling is actually possible. Getting five people in a room is a text message. Getting twenty is a project.

• It can be intimate. People come to know each other in particulars, not just names and vibes but histories, patterns, what someone's like when they're struggling and what they'll never think to ask for.

• It supports consistency and commitment. In a small group your absence is felt, and being needed is what turns good intentions into showing up.

• It can be targeted. A crew can pick its own goals, interests, and plans instead of trying to be everything to everyone.