East Brooklyn Mutual Aid

During the pandemic, East Brooklyn experienced higher death rates than NYC's average toll. In Ocean Hill and Brownsville, nearly half of the community experience hunger due to lack of income, and East New York is one of the biggest food swamps in NYC. This lack of access to healthy food stands in direct correlation to the community's death toll, and East Brooklyn Mutual Aid (EBMA) is on a mission to transform the food landscape of East Brooklyn to serve its people. EBMA is a volunteer-led initiative run by ordinary people, mostly Black, Latinx, and LGBTQIA+ folks, addressing food insecurity in Brooklyn's Eastern neighborhoods. EBMA was organized to support those affected by COVID-19, particularly immunocompromised and unemployed people, by providing free groceries and social support, and we have expanded to strengthen movements for food sovereignty and community-reliance through direct community organizing.