Season 1, Episode 10

The Anarchist Next Door: Blue Boxes and Mutual Aid

October 1, 2026 · 45:13

“The idea was to decrease people’s reliance on the government and increase your reliance on each other,” Theresa Fulton says, describing mutual aid as though the concept were as natural as lending a neighbor a cup of sugar. “The community tries to help each other out.”

Theresa is the coordinator of Mutual Aid Tompkins — a volunteer-run network that operates 47 blue food-sharing cabinets across Tompkins County, a Facebook community of nearly 10,000 members, and a small grants-and-donations fund that can get a domestic violence survivor’s car out of impound the same day someone asks for help. The whole thing runs on a few thousand dollars a year and a handful of regulars and started during the pandemic. Six years later, it is one of the most concretely useful organizations in the county, and Theresa still can’t quite believe how often someone has exactly what a stranger needs.

“Cat food, mattresses — literally, people have shared,” she says. “And so I think it’s a way of sharing things and giving back to the community.”

From Little Free Libraries to Blue Food Cabinets

In 2020, a few people in Tompkins County wanted to find a way for the community to help each other during the pandemic shutdown. Someone saw one of those little free libraries — the wooden boxes on posts where people swap books — and thought: what if that was food instead?

Volunteers built the cabinets. Other volunteers placed them around the county — downtown Ithaca, Dryden, Freeville, Lansing, Newfield, Danby, Spencer. The network started with a formal roster of community members helping one another. Over time, as the core group stayed small, the structure loosened, but the cabinets kept multiplying. When Theresa took over coordinating in 2022, there were roughly 30, and the number keeps growing.

“We have a good diversity of distribution right now,” she says. There are dense clusters downtown and cabinets in rural towns like the Etna-Freeville area where the nearest grocery store means a bus ride. When Spencer lost its only full-service grocery store to a fire in September 2026, Mutual Aid Tompkins added a second cabinet there within weeks.

No Questions Asked

The cabinets are open to anyone, any time, for any reason. There is no sign-up, no income check, no means test. Donations are anonymous. Taking is anonymous. Nobody monitors who comes or goes.

“We don’t ask any questions,” Theresa says. “Some people complain, ‘somebody came and cleaned out the whole cabinet!’ We don’t know if that person has ten kids. We don’t know if they’re taking food back to their neighborhood.”

This is deliberate. A food bank can feel embarrassing — you have to sign in, sometimes give your income. The blue cabinets eliminate that entirely. You take what you need, and nobody sees you do it.

And the cabinets often offer more than food. Toilet paper is one of the biggest needs because you cannot buy it with SNAP benefits. The same goes for menstrual products, diapers for babies and adults, personal care products like soap, shampoo, skin creams, and cleaning supplies. These everyday essentials are often harder to get than a box of cereal.

“Diapers — you can’t use SNAP, you can’t use WIC,” Theresa says. “They’re actually almost a huger need than food.”

And Theresa is strict about quality: nothing past the sell-by date goes in a cabinet. She knows the arguments — most food is safe past the printed date — and she does not budge. “It’s very demoralizing to come to the cabinet and find something from 2020,” she says. “People are already vulnerable. They don’t need to open a can of something and it’s gross.”

Items past date but probably still good go to the Friendship Donation Network. Food truly past its useful life goes to a local farmer whose pigs and chickens do not care about expiration dates. Nothing gets wasted.

Solidarity, Not Charity

On the Mutual Aid Tompkins website, the tagline reads “solidarity, not charity.” Theresa says the distinction is mostly a mindset, but it shapes everything the organization does.

“We don’t want people to feel like some rich person is giving them money,” she says. “It’s more — we’re here to support you. Everybody’s part of a community.”

The difference from charity is the word mutual. The person who sends someone grocery money this month might be the person who needs a drill next month, or a couple hours of childcare, or help clearing branches from a yard. Nobody is permanently on one side of the exchange.

“You never know when you’re gonna be the person that needs it,” Theresa says. “So it’s more of building a community, and feeling neighborly.”

The Facebook group makes this visible. People have posted requests for someone to teach them to knit, for a few hours of babysitting when the daycares are full, for help cleaning an apartment when life has piled up. The responses come from the same pool of ten thousand neighbors who also stock the cabinets and donate toilet paper. It is not a service with clients. It is a network with members.

Designed by the People Who Use Them

Not all 47 cabinets are identical. The standard ones sit on the ground — stable, sturdy, built by volunteers. But Theresa noticed people pulling up to cabinets in scooters and wheelchairs, unable to reach the bottom shelf or open the door while seated.

She organized a design session at a housing complex for seniors and people with disabilities in Cortland County. Half a dozen residents sat down with Theresa and an engineer colleague and talked through the measurements: how high does the cabinet need to be so wheels can roll underneath? How far back can you reach into a shelf from a seated position?

The answer was 30 inches off the ground, with shelves shallow enough to reach from a wheelchair. Her colleague drew the design; a volunteer built the first one, which now sits at Clark’s Food Mart in Dryden. A second accessible cabinet went up at a similar complex in Freeville. A Cornell student group has volunteered to build a third one this fall, near Wood Park and the senior housing at Titus Towers.

“We took all those ideas together,” Theresa says. “The Clark’s one maybe is a bit big to be freestanding, so we decided let’s make the next one a little smaller. The dimensions of course have to be the same.”

The Experiment That Didn’t Work

Theresa’s background is in science — her PhD is in science education, and she worked on National Science Foundation grants before she ever stocked a food cabinet. So when Cornell engineering students offered to put sensors in the cabinets to track how quickly food was taken, she was thrilled.

“Data would be great,” she says. “I was thinking, wow, this will really help me write grants.”

The students tried infrared sensors and weight pads under the shelves — nothing that would identify anyone, just enough to tell whether a cabinet was empty or full. It didn’t work. People in the community saw wires and assumed surveillance. The cabinets got vandalized.

“I didn’t realize that people are so concerned about security and privacy,” Theresa says. “If they saw any hint of a wire or anything, it would get vandalized.”

The students got good grades. The sensors did not survive. Theresa still wishes she had the data.

Refrigerators, Warming Pads, and the Problem of Winter

Cabinets work fine in temperate weather. Winter and summer are different problems.

In the heat, anything perishable — lettuce, yogurt, milk — goes bad within hours. In the cold, cans and glass bottles freeze, expand, and burst. Theresa has learned to watch for the sweet spot: early winter, when the outside temperature hovers around forty degrees and milk can sit in a cabinet all day.

Three locations have found solutions. On Plain Street in Ithaca, two full-size refrigerators sit near a cabinet, heavily stocked by the Friendship Donation Network with surplus from Wegmans, Green Star Co-op, Walmart, and Cornell Dairy. In Varna, an ingenious build uses what amounts to a pet warming pad to keep shelves above freezing so cans survive the winter. In Dryden, Clark’s Food Mart allowed Mutual Aid Tompkins to plug in a donated mini fridge.

“It’s hard because the cabinets are outdoors,” Theresa says. “A lot of places would be happy to host a refrigerator, but there’s no place to plug it in.”

Ten Thousand Members, One Platform

The blue cabinets are the visible part of Mutual Aid Tompkins. The less visible part is a Facebook group with nearly ten thousand members — in a county of roughly a hundred thousand people.

The group has a dedicated “Immediate Needs” page where anyone can post a request. Someone needs gas money. Someone needs a few groceries to last until their SNAP benefits reload next week. A mother is overwhelmed and needs a couple of hours of help cleaning her apartment. Theresa posted that last request on a recent morning and had two volunteers lined up within hours.

One story she returns to: a domestic violence survivor whose car had been impounded. Theresa put out a request for funds on the Facebook page. By the end of the day, she had enough money to go down and get the car released.

“It really is amazing sometimes,” she says. “The things that people ask for and that people will have to share.”

She knows Facebook has problems — people are leaving, privacy concerns are real, and mutual aid groups have particular reason to worry. But she has not found another platform where someone can ask, someone can answer, and a third person can mark a need as met, all in one thread.

“It works,” she says. “So what can we say?”

Running on Recurring PayPal and Small Grants

Mutual Aid Tompkins is not a 501(c)(3). It does not have a board of directors or paid staff. What it has is a fiscal sponsor: the Tompkins County Workers’ Center, which accepts grants on its behalf, takes a small administrative fee, and passes the rest through.

“We’re so grateful,” Theresa says, “because it’s hard. It’s a lot of administrative stuff and we just don’t have the people power.”

The budget is small and variable. Recurring PayPal donations from community members bring in a few hundred dollars a month. Grants come from the Community Foundation of Tompkins County and the Legacy Foundation — usually a thousand to a few thousand dollars at a time. Theresa once got a grant from FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which no longer exists. Whatever comes in goes right back out: groceries, diapers, toilet paper, small emergency help.

“We don’t want to have profit,” she says. “Money that we get — I shop.”

A Handful of People, a Hundred Thousand Neighbors

The monthly meeting draws a handful of regulars. Several people moderate the Facebook pages, screening out judgmental comments and spam. A few volunteers watch individual cabinets — the First Congregational Church of Ithaca watches two. Theresa’s husband fixes latches and hinges as the older cabinets wear out. One person has handled the finances for years.

Theresa herself stocks cabinets on Mondays and Thursdays. She hits five or six a week. The one nearest the homeless camp gets restocked twice a week. She always comes back feeling like she didn’t do enough.

“I have not been out to Newfield in a long time,” she says. “I know that Danby needs help. I struggle with it — you can never, ever do enough.”

But she keeps going. And when asked what she would tell a small group in another town that wanted to start something like this, her advice is practical: you need a few committed people, a plan, and continuity. It doesn’t take 20 volunteers. It does take people who will stick around.

“You can’t run hot and cold something like this,” she says. “You can’t start it and then forget about it, never check the Facebook page, and just go away. That would be terrible for the community and very hurtful.”

She thinks mutual aid works in Tompkins County in part because the community has a particular kind of empathy — an understanding that need is not somebody else’s problem. “People often say you’re just one medical bill away from being homeless,” she says. “This community does think about that sort of stuff.” But she believes it could work elsewhere, too, once people started to think about it.

If you have a can of soup your family won’t eat, or you see toilet paper on sale buy-one-get-one, there is a blue cabinet near you. The cabinets are distributed across the county — downtown, uptown, and in the rural towns where getting to a grocery store means driving 20 minutes.

“Every little thing helps,” Theresa says. “That can of soup might be a family’s dinner. You never know.”

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Read the Full Transcript

Theresa Fulton (00:00) If you see shampoo, buy one, get one free, please do it and drop off one. maybe just throw an extra roll of toil paper in a cabinet. There's a cabinet near you. I mean, they're so widely distributed for sure. There's a a cabinet near you.

Just keep it in mind when you're shopping and try to help 'cause every little thing, you know, that can of soup might be a family's dinner, you never know.

dia (00:27) Welcome to the Ithaca Local Economy Lab, a conversation with businesses, nonprofits, government, and non-government programs in and around central New York that are envisioning, building, or already operating in the new economy. I'm your neighbor and host, Dia, and in every episode we'll take a look at what's different, what's working, and sometimes what's not. The new economy is already here. It's just unevenly distributed, and this is your invitation to lean into it.

Today, we're looking at a surprising manifestation of ... anarchy in our community. In this case, the anarchy is really just people helping each other through the use of neighborhood blue boxes without the government being involved. There are over 50 of these blue boxes scattered throughout Tompkins County and a few dozen more in Cortland County, in neighborhoods, parks, schools, and apartments. Theresa Fulton, the volunteer coordinator,

Of Mutual Aid Tompkins Blue Boxes joins us to explain.

dia (01:30) let's start with what you feel like mutual aid is in general.

Theresa Fulton (01:36) Okay. to me it's sharing of resources a lot. You know, we do if I have get donations and grant money and stuff, we do buy things for people sometimes. But on our Facebook page in particular, people will ask for things. We have a Facebook page called Immediate Needs. People will ask for things and it's just amazing to me how often someone else in the community has that. Cat food, I mean like mattresses literally, people have sh have shared. And so I think it's a it's a

a way of sharing things and giving back to the community. You know, when I started it with mutual aid, I sort of looked it up and the person that started it was actually an anarchist way back in the nineteen forties, I think. And the idea was to decrease people's reliance on the government and increase your reliance on each other. So I think that's what Mutual Aid means to me, that the community tries to help each other out. Not that there's anything wrong with

you know, getting government resources, but we you know, they're iffy and they change and, you know, we have to be ready to help each other out. So to me it's a sharing as much as possible among the community.

dia (02:45) Yeah,

that it was that's so interesting that has an anarchy basis. That that has such a

Theresa Fulton (02:48) Yeah.

dia (02:50) you know, that word anarchy has such a negative connotation for so many people, right? It's like, violence and overthrow and all that kind of stuff,

Theresa Fulton (02:56) Mm-hmm. Yeah.

dia (02:59) but here we're kind of exactly the opposite. It's just very community based.

Theresa Fulton (03:02) Right. And you know, it was the basis of things like the Black Panthers free school lunches. This is what I was reading online and soup kitchens and things like that came out of that idea of his was Peter or somebody and I can't ever pronounce his last name.

but it came out of that whole concept of mutual aid. And it's not just us, it's a nationwide thing. I know I met someone from Massachusetts that they also have food sharing cabinets in there. So it's not just us, it's nationwide and should be more of them, of course.

dia (03:32) does it seem like it's growing the idea of mutual aid?

Theresa Fulton (03:36) Locally, yes. And I think we've worked really hard. Our our small group has worked really hard to publicize it more and make it more you know, we have our f main Facebook group has almost ten thousand people in it right now. just for this county and there's a mutual aid group in Cortland County as well. and the food sharing cabinets have really spread. I haven't kept up on it like nationally,

if it I or I haven't heard anything about it, which is why I think what you're doing is so great, getting the idea, you know, out there more, because the these are hard times and and very often people have something they're gonna throw away or their food that they're not gonna use that other people can use and it and there can be sharing. So I think it's great to get the idea and that's why we always jump on the chance to talk to people and get publicity.

dia (04:25) mutual aid Tompkins County has been around for I guess it did it actually start in the pandemic shut down in 2020?

Theresa Fulton (04:33) In 2020 during the pandemic, right.

And I think and that was pre me it was before I joined, but I think, people looked around to try to figure out how can the community help people right now, 'cause it was a a terrible time. And so it started then so we were in like our sixth year right now. And I think I joined shortly after that, maybe late 2020 early 2021.

dia (04:54) So how did you discover it and what made you decide to join in?

Theresa Fulton (04:58) Yeah,

it was definitely the pandemic. It was just everything was so negative. I just felt like there has to be something that I can do to make me feel better, to help the community. And I think I just started Googling like what's going on in Tompkins County and stuff and totally stumbled across Mutual Aid Tompkins.

dia (05:16) So you don't have a background in anything like mutual aid at all? Your background is quite different, I think.

Theresa Fulton (05:23) Yes, I've

I mean I'm coming out of science and scientific research. My PhD's actually in science education, so no, totally different.

dia (05:34) Not your typical anarchist.

Theresa Fulton (05:36) Yeah. I will say that some things that in my background have been very helpful, like when I worked in research we contributed to National Science Foundation grants.

And that's really helped me right now, trying to write grants and and get some funding for the food cabinets. and also just being very organized and I think my science mind does help, but I had I knew nothing about community or volunteering work or mutual aid or anything like that, no.

dia (06:05) Well, so walk us through a little bit how Mutual Aid Tompkins actually started back in 2020.

Theresa Fulton (06:12) Yeah, so this is hearsay since it was before me, but what from what I understand it, a few people got together and wanted to find some way to help the community help each other. And one of the things they thought of was these the food sharing cabinets. And someone saw those little libraries that people have for books and thought y this would be great if that was food instead and so

They had volunteers that all the cabinets have been built by volunteers. they had volunteers build them, distribute them around. at the time they had more of a like formal network of people and communities to help each other. Right now, since we are such a small group, that's kind of loosened up. But so we have two main things that we do. The one is the Facebook page where people can share things that they need, ask for help.

We have somebody right now asking that desperately n need some help doing a cleanup of their apartment. we once had a domestic violence survivor whose car was impounded I put out a request for funds to help her get her car out. like literally that day I was able to go down and get her car out of impound. So it's I think it's very much a community, it's really amazing still to me.

the things that people ask for and that people, will have that they can share.

dia (07:23) So I think that one of the misunderstandings around mutual aid is that people sort of forget the mutual part of that and there's a sense of it being more of a charity type of a thing. So if somebody is, you know, middle class or has a good job or generally is doing pretty fine, but just maybe needs a drill or

Theresa Fulton (07:48) Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

dia (07:48) Something like that. Is that an appropriate use of mutual aid?

Theresa Fulton (07:53) Absolutely. you know, we don't ask any questions like with the food sharing cabinets, there's no restrictions. they don't have to sign up, it's totally anonymous. we don't judge if you know, w some people complain sometimes, somebody came and t and cleaned out the whole cabinet. We don't know if that person has ten kids. We don't know if they're taking food back to their neighborhood.

We don't ask any questions and when people post, we don't try to figure out, that person has money, they don't need to to borrow a drill, it's totally a giving thing. And also it has repercussions like it's better for the environment. If someone's going to throw away a mattress and somebody's asking for a mattress, that's really good. That that's not going to the junk thing. If someone needs a drill, why should they buy one for that one? Maybe they only need it at one time when they can just borrow one from somebody. So

I think it has even wider effects than just helping that s particular person.

dia (08:47) Now you use this example of the person who is needing a cleaning just now, right?

Theresa Fulton (08:52) Mm-hmm.

dia (08:53) so is is the mutual aid Facebook page used for things like that, like if you had you know, needed help in your garden or something?

Theresa Fulton (09:01) Yep, absolutely. We've had people c can somebody come pick up like st branches and sticks and things? So I posted a note this morning about the person that asked for help and cleaning. And I've actually done this before when people are just overwhelmed, you know, moms usually just overwhelmed and just need somebody to just come help me clean up and organize. So I've actually done that a couple of times with people.

But the people I did it for before weren't available. So I posted a note this morning. I already have two people lined up to help. the with within like hours. So we just have to plan a time. So it really is amazing sometimes. Yeah. And we we do

do if since we get donations like through PayPal and I do sometimes get grants, sometimes people will post the especially at the end of the month when people run out of SNAP.

I just need a couple of groceries to last me till next week, milk and bread and stuff. And so I will send people, a small amount. We can't usually pay heating bills, six hundred dollars and things like that. We usually can't do that. But it's often I am able to send a small amount of groceries to somebody to get through that week or something like that.

dia (10:09) So is Tompkins County Mutual Aid a five one C three? Do you get grants?

Theresa Fulton (10:14) We are not, but we

but the Tompkins County Workers Center thankfully and wonderfully s fiscally sponsors us. So we can get grants because the money goes to them and then they take an administrative fee small and send it to us. So th th we're so grateful because it's hard, it's a lot of administrative stuff and we just don't have the people power. it's a very dynamic group, it's small and people come and you know, there's a few regulars but it it's very dynamic. It would be really hard to do that.

So we're very grateful that we have that fiscal sponsor and that's how we're able to get grants.

dia (10:47) So what is your budget for a for an average year?

Theresa Fulton (10:52) my gosh, I the chain is so highly variable. So we get PayPal donations, many people send recurring monthly PayPal donations. So I think in total that's like a few hundred a month. I've gotten grants, anywhere from a thousand hour grants to a couple of thousand grants, mostly just local community foundation, legacy foundation grants.

when there was FEMA, I got a grant from the emergency food and shelter program. which you know, there's no FEMA now, but so I've tried to get things so I would say I don't know, it's probably a few thousand and since we don't wanna have profit, obviously we I just spent so money that we get I shop. You know, right now I'm shopping like crazy, we have a nice grant, and try to put things in the cabinet.

or help people out like we're getting a lot of requests for diapers right now. I don't know suddenly and they're very super expensive and you can't use Snap and you can't use the WIC, anything like that. so I'm buying a lot of diapers for people. but our budget is just really variable and we just use whatever we can. We send it right back to the community.

dia (12:07) Yes, I think that's such an important item and I just wanna highlight that for the person listening, because if you are wanting to start something like a mutual aid group, or really any any one of a number of groups that might be helpful in your community, and it would be something that you could get grants for, but you're not big enough to actually create

Theresa Fulton (12:28) Mm-hmm.

dia (12:29) a 501c3.

going and getting a sponsor is a really I I mean it's probably the very best way to do it

Theresa Fulton (12:34) Yeah. Mm-hmm.

dia (12:36) and to and to have it organized. And then you get s you also get a partnership, right? They're kind of gonna help you and with how to

Theresa Fulton (12:43) Right. And

it it helps them too, since they take a small percent when I get grants. And w we're so happy to be able to help them as well. So and we definitely try to support them like the when they had the the Labor Day picnic there. they invited people to sponsor and table and we definitely, try to help and give back to them as well. We really appreciate

them.

dia (13:02) Yeah.

so on the Mutual Aid Tomkins website there is a little

blurb that says sol solidarity, not charity. What does that mean in pr in practice?

Theresa Fulton (13:14) I think it's complicated and it's mostly a mindset. So we don't want people to feel like some rich person is giving them money or because I'm poor somebody's giving it's more we're here to support you and everybody's part of a community and we're here to support you. It's not that some rich person is donating money and they don't care where it goes and they feel like they're doing it this great thing. It's it's more of a togetherness thing.

And you don't know when you might need it back. You know, like you said, maybe somebody needs a drill and they may be the person that the previous month sent somebody groceries or gave them gas money. So you never know when you're gonna be the person that needs it. So it's more of building a community, and feeling neighborly.

dia (13:57) I love that idea so much. that's so we definitely need more of that and that community building is some you know, it that's been

Theresa Fulton (14:05) Yeah.

dia (14:06) a it's been a theme through so many of our episodes so far. It's all you know, it all

Theresa Fulton (14:10) Mm-hmm.

dia (14:11) just comes down to community and trying to work together and finding ways to make that happen. And so mutual aid here. I wanna get clear on this idea of

if I go onto the Facebook page and I say, I need somebody to help me in my garden, is it appropriate for me to say, I could pay you a little bit of money or is that okay.

Theresa Fulton (14:30) Yeah, well people do. People do that. Absolutely.

People do that. Absolutely. we don't let people sell things necessarily 'cause there's other places you can do that. but people c have said, I I can pay you a little bit. People have posted GoFundMe's and that's fine. you know, absolutely.

dia (14:49) so when you started in 2021, they already had these blue food cabinets. And then

Theresa Fulton (14:53) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

dia (14:55) as I understand it, you kind of took that over and and why don't you tell us a little bit about what you did there?

Theresa Fulton (15:01) Yeah, so when I joined they had a I believe she was an Ithaca College student kind of coordinating it and then after her there was another I think they were both I C students. And when he graduated they said, you know, we need somebody to coordinate and I was helping and d donating to the cabinets and helping clean up and stuff and I just agreed to coordinate it. I'm not sure I knew what I was getting into, but yeah, so I I became the coordinate I think it was twenty twenty two, I took over.

coordinating and that does not mean like people say like you're the one stocking all the cabinets. No. It's not I can do I do if I can, if we have donations and I can shop my favorite thing is to go shop for things to put in the cabinet. It's you know that's awesome. But it more means making sure they're okay. Are they is somebody watching them? So most of them have somebody that's watching them, making sure they're clean, you know, bread doesn't moldy bread isn't there or something spilled.

when I started the cabinets were already a couple of years old, so they were starting they were getting to the point to start to need repairs. So we've been doing a lot of latches and hinges. My husband does a lot of that. another person helps. You know, a lot of the hinges were getting rusty and things like that. So it's more like making sure they work. And also that the locations work. So they're not always successful in every location. We've had places where

people used it as a a dumping ground and started leaving, clothes and toys and all sorts of things next to it that would get wet and icky. We had one that happened to be near a school bus drop off where kids were getting off and they would go and throw things out of the cab you y I don't understand people but you know, started throwing things out of the cabinet and when they started throwing things dangerously close to people's houses

the community that was watching that cabinet said this just isn't working right now. So it's to make sure they're in good places. Lately now that we have so many and the need is so great, I've been a little more careful to, you know, people say, we'd like a cabinet down out here on, you know, Main Street or wherever. I've been more careful to say, okay, do you have a plan? Do you have a group of people that will stock it because

People have this idea, well, you just put one there and and somebody, you know, build it and they will come sort of thing and then that doesn't it's gonna be empty and people are gonna be sad and bummed. So I now I'm more careful to say what's your plan? Do you have a group of people? Is it a church or, you know, a community group or just your neighbors together that can help at least help stock it, you know, maybe not keep it. we don't think that they're gonna be full twenty four seven. They're certainly not, but

some plan to to have a stock sometimes and maybe a little publicity to your neighbors to help stock, things like that. so I'm a little more careful now since the need is so high and I don't like the idea that I mean people do say they're always empty, they're always empty, even if I know that it's just been because th they're they're emptied fast. but I do try to make sure there's more publicity.

make sure the community members are involved, somebody's watching that cabinet and a lot of them I have a few that I do need adopters for, but a lot of them like the Quasar group adopted a cabinet and they watched the one down that's now on Washington Park. The First Congregational Church of Ithaca watches two cabinets for me, the Wood Park one and one on State Street, and they can get the community to stock it, I think at least once a week. So they're most of them have somebody

you know, certainly we encourage random people, you know, if you're looking in your cabinet and you're not gonna use something by the s the best buy day or you see toilet paper, buy one, get one free, you know, we do certainly encourage just drop off something anything. but I do like to make sure there's somebody that's formally really, you know, making sure that it has something in it at least.

we don't want expired stuff, but buy the best buy date. If you see shampoo, buy one, get one free, please do it and drop off one. maybe just throw an extra roll of toil paper in a cabinet. There's a cabinet near you. I mean, they're so widely distributed for sure. There's a a cabinet near you.

Just keep it in mind when you're shopping and try to help 'cause every little thing, you know, that can of soup might be a family's dinner, you never know. Hmm.

dia (19:18) so you take

not just food, you take toiletries and household goods, is it

Theresa Fulton (19:22) Definitely. Toilet paper's actually

a huge thing because you can't get toilet paper, toiletries, menstrual items,

dia (19:27) And diapers.

Theresa Fulton (19:29) diapers. You can't buy them with snap. So they're actually a almost huger need than food. Yeah.

dia (19:38) Well, okay. So what about things like cleaning supplies? Okay.

Theresa Fulton (19:42) Yes. as long as

they're not like don't put dangerous things in there, aerosol cans if it's ninety degrees or you know, be thoughtful about it. don't put used makeup or you know, used things like that that's gross, half empty jars of spaghetti sauce and thank you. Regarding the expiration dates and the sell by dates, you know, we have a lot of discussion about that because yes, they're good past the date, we know that.

But we don't know if someone knows how to tell when it goes bad. When does it go bad? You know, we don't w wanna take that risk. And also people have said to me, it's very demoralizing to come to the cabinet and find something from t t 2020, you know, 2019. And we get we get a lot of stuff that's way, way past date. And so I'm just I'm pretty strict about it. And I know people argue with me, but it's fine for a year past the day. Okay, maybe. But it's rude and

You don't know when is that can of beans gonna go bad? Are we gonna make somebody sick? You know, and they're already vulnerable people. They don't need to get open a can of something and it's gross. So I'm pretty strict on nothing past sell by dates. We have a location at Friendship Donation Network where people we put things that are like a year, they're probably good. People can take if they want. After that we have a connection with a

a farmer that has pigs and chickens who don't care how far past the ex expiration date it is. So it's not wasted. but I personally am pretty strict on the sell by dates.

dia (21:15) Makes that makes a lot of sense because we don't don't want to make anybody sick or or add to their emotional burdens by making them feel like they're less than they deserve less than fresh food.

Theresa Fulton (21:22) Right. Exactly. That's exactly right, yeah.

dia (21:28) So when you started when you took over the blue cabinets, how many were there?

Theresa Fulton (21:34) Yeah, I was gonna look back at the th I think it was in the thirties and we've been increasing. and f it's four at forty seven now and I think I'm counting Candor and Spencer. There's one on a couple new ones in Spencer. when Spencer had that big grocery store fire a couple of weeks ago, we were able to add another cabinet, so there's two now there.

We've had volunteers build them and I don't even know who built some of them.

we have a good distribution right now. So there's a lot downtown and those, certainly get more attention. And there we do have a lot of rural ones, like, the Edna Freeville area. There's no way for those people to get to a grocery store either without taking the bus or something. So I think we have a good diversity of distribution of of locations right now.

dia (22:19) So if somebody is in a community outside of Ithaca in the in one of these rural towns and they think that they might want to have a blue box, is there a do you have a sort of a a checklist or something that they can look at on the website or how would they go about figuring that out?

Theresa Fulton (22:37) yeah, we have a community mutual aid Tompkins email and people ask and we have to sometimes get permission to put it in a place too. You can't just put one somewhere if it's somebody's yard, we have to ask. If it's belongs to the city of Ithaca has been wonderful, I have to say I've asked like to put one in Wood Park, near that park and they were fine. We asked to put one in Washington Park and they let me. They've been wonderful. But

you know, first I had to make sure we can put a cabinet there. and then either that I have an extra one that's like right now I think I do have one in storage, or I have to get someone to build one. And then also to ask l like I said, what is your plan? 'Cause especially those rural ones are very hard to get stocked just because there's not a lot of traffic. you know, there's not as many people out there going by to stock us. So I do try to make sure that there's some sort of plan, yeah.

dia (23:28) as I was researching a little bit, I learned that you actually had a group that you put together of disabled individuals who helped you to design cabinets that were accessible. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Theresa Fulton (23:43) Sure, yeah. And that was actually a group in Cortland. And there's I think six or seven blue cabinets in Cortland as well that Cortland Mutual Aid Group takes care of.

But it was at a c a complex that was for senior people and people with disabilities. And I noticed that people were coming up like in those scooters and stuff, and they can't reach the bottom shelf and it's really hard. You're trying to open the door when you're in a wheelchair or whatever. And that's what kind of gave me the idea. So in that apartment complex, I knew a couple people and we set a date and I asked them to publicize it and we put up a flyer. So we had

I forget how many people, half a dozen or a couple more. And we sat down, a colleague and I, who's an engineer that helped design it, and we asked them and you know, we measured how high does it have to be so that your wheels can get up close enough so that you can reach in. How far back can you reach into a cabinet when you're sitting, on a a scooter over a wheelchair? And so we designed the one that you've probably seen at Clark's or seen a picture of it.

specifically with those measurements it has to be thirty inches off the ground, things like that. and my engineer colleague drew a design and someone volunteered to help build it.

dia (24:54) Is that design available to the public

Theresa Fulton (24:56) I could post it. Yeah, I should post it. We have another one in Freeville at another c apartment complex that's similar. And we had a person try a little something else with different materials. it's accessible. I think maybe it's harder to use than the one at Clark's, but so there are two now that are and then we have a group

at Cornell that's actually interested this fall in building one more of the accessible ones. And so we took all those ideas together and I said, you know, the Clarks one maybe is a bit big. Like I'm thinking to put the next one down at Wood Park, which is near the Titus Towers and the senior housing. And I think to be freestanding, that one of Clarks maybe it's a little big, so we decided let's make that one a little bit smaller. The dimensions of course have to be the same. and the problem with those ones

is balance and stability because they're not like the usual cabinets are on the ground, they're stable. These are on legs. and so there there's the you have to think about that. But we're actually planning to build another one this fall with a a group that just volunteered out of the blue.

dia (26:04) And you had a

Theresa Fulton (26:05) Mm.

dia (26:06) I guess an engineering team or engineering students from Cornell at one point design some sort of a scale for the for them?

Theresa Fulton (26:13) Yeah, that was

you know, we try things, not everything works. so that

dia (26:17) Sure. That's good.

Theresa Fulton (26:20) that idea was that it would be great to know if the cabinets are empty or how often they're getting stacked, like if one's getting stacked a ladder and one's not getting enough, if one you know, how fast are they empty, it would be helpful information and and me as a scientist thought, you know, data would be great.

And so they've tried to design one with like sensors under the shelves to see if the weight was changing with little infrared things to be able to tell if there is there anything in the cabinet or not. we tried a couple of semesters with and it it it didn't work in the end. In part because I didn't realize that people are so concerned about security and privacy and things.

that if they saw any hint of like a wire or anything, it would would get vandalized. and that was my lack of realizing people don't want to see that sort of thing. so we tried and they got good grades as far as I know. But I think that idea's not gonna work. Too bad.

dia (27:26) I think yeah, I think that's really good information though if if somebody listening is wanting to put up a food cabinet or something and maybe can't check it very often, that the idea

Theresa Fulton (27:36) Mm-hmm.

dia (27:37) of putting a camera in because cameras are so cheap and and easy to

Theresa Fulton (27:40) Yeah.

dia (27:41) to do these days might not work in every community, especially as

Theresa Fulton (27:45) Right. Yeah.

dia (27:46) people are becoming more and more sensitive to surveillance and things like that.

Theresa Fulton (27:50) Yeah. And even we try we tried to explain it's not a camera that shows anything in particular. It's a camera that only shows like shadows of things, you know, it d it's not in focus, but yeah, people are r rightfully concerned about that sort of thing.

dia (28:06) Right. Well, this is why we do experiments, right?

Theresa Fulton (28:09) Mm-hmm. I would have loved to see some data.

And I was thinking, wow, this will really help me write grants, you if I have data and how fast the food is going and stuff. But anyways.

dia (28:21) And you have actually a couple of refrigerated boxes as well.

Theresa Fulton (28:26) Right. I was trying to remember I think so there's one down on Plain Street that I think has two big fridges and they get a lot of stuff from the Friendship Donation Network where we get things too.

So the Friendship Donation Network, also awesome people, gets things from like Walmart and Wegmans and Green Star, things like especially a bread that's gonna expire in a d or be past date in a day or two, they get a lot of that.

They get vegetables and things from farms they have too much stuff and so the they have a direct connection to the one up since it's so close, the one on Plain Street. So they have two fridges there and they get a lot of stuff. Especially we get like milk a lot from Cornell Dairy.

And I can't put that in the in the cabinets unless it happens to be forty, you know, refrigerator temperature outside. so there's the one in Plain Street is great. Varna has a refrigerator and also a cabinet that has shelves that

can be warm. So in the winter the problem is that we can't put cans and glass because they explode or the seals break and become unsafe and very messy, by the way. So we tried to tell people somewhat successfully, not to put cans in glass. But the one in Varna they built, they had a grant and the ingenuity is amazing.

It's some kind of warming, like a pet warming pad, I think, that keeps the shelves from freezing so you can put cans there. So they have the refrigerator and you can put there's one in Lansing that has warming shelves. And then in Dryden, Clark's let us put we get had a free donation of a mini fridge and Clark's who has been wonderful let us plug it in there as well.

So we can put milk and yogurt and you know eggs and stuff like that, which is nice. 'Cause you have to be really careful about what you put in the cabinets, on eighty degree days.

you don't want to be putting lettuce and, you know, parsley and things like that 'cause it's very nasty. And then in the winter you have to be careful. there's some sweet spots like in the beginning of winter when you can put milk in the cabinets. It's great when it's forty degrees, you know, and that's always fun to do. but yeah, there's three I'm thinking of all of them? I think Clark's I think there's three locations that have refrigerators right now. It's hard because the cabinets are outdoors and

A lot of places I think would be happy to ho to host a refrigerator as well, but there's no place to plug it in. so yeah, you know, the it's hard to get a the perfect location where that works.

dia (30:54) Right. And then finding right

finding people to to watch it as well. So when you

Theresa Fulton (30:59) Yeah, mm-hmm.

dia (31:00) I mean, we have a lot of critters around here. is there an issue with that going into the cabinets a lot? And how do you deal with that? What's

Theresa Fulton (31:08) Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's mainly it seems to be a couple of locations that have that problem. And yeah, we just have to keep cleaning it out. There's one downtown where some squirrels are eating the top of the cabinet and that you know you can't there's nothing I can do about it except eventually we'll have to replace it if it gets too bad. the mice, you know, I just try to put signs and reiterate to people that they need to shut the doors and that's not

foolproof because they're not like sealed. But really the critter problem is not as big as I would think it would be.

dia (31:48) you told us your budget it which sounds really low to me, which is which is fabulous, right? I mean, it it a few thousand dollars, maybe ten thousand dollars a year or something, or

Theresa Fulton (31:56) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

dia (31:58) twelve thousand say a thousand dollars a month maybe. and that's because the community picks up so much, but do you have a sense of how much food

Theresa Fulton (32:06) Ha

dia (32:07) you give away

Theresa Fulton (32:08) it's that's also anonymous. The donating is as anonymous as the getting. So, and since it does go so fast, you know, I really have no clue. Several years ago a Cornell professor Carla Hansen had a class that did a survey and tried to guess. and I have that paper somewhere they wrote a paper on how much food and it was thousands of servings of food a week I think. it w so it was a lot, but

For one thing it'd be so variable between different cabinets, between the time of year and I yeah, I just have no idea.

dia (32:45) If only those little scales were in there, right? we love data. I know. I'm the same kind of I want all the data. It's so much

Theresa Fulton (32:46) Yeah, I know, that's why d data would have been so wonderful, but

dia (32:55) easier. Well, so the blue boxes are fabulous and they're so necessary and very anonymous. Like a lot of people

Theresa Fulton (33:04) Mm-hmm.

dia (33:05) are very, concerned about showing up to a food bank because that feels

Theresa Fulton (33:08) Yeah, it's embarrassing.

I mean, it can be really embarrassing. It you have to sign in and sometimes they'll ask your income or whatever, yeah, definitely an a bad feeling.

dia (33:16) Right. But with the blue boxes, you just you just stop in and

Theresa Fulton (33:21) Mm-hmm.

dia (33:22) show up and see if there's something there that you need and or maybe even ask somebody to bring it to you if you can't, 'cause I know a lot of folks don't have

Theresa Fulton (33:28) Mm-hmm.

dia (33:29) cars or transportation or whatever. but mutual aid is much more than just food distribution as well, like we talked about with the Facebook page, which I think here in in Tompkins County, that seems to be your main way of

That's kind of the hub is the Facebook page.

Theresa Fulton (33:44) Yeah,

kind of unfortunate. know, people are trying to get away from Facebook. A lot of people and people are worried about the security of Facebook and mutual aid groups. But I have not yet found a platform that works so well where someone can ask and someone can answer and someone could say, Okay, this need has been met and you know, another person could say, Well, maybe like the other day somebody was asking, they were helping an elderly person and needed cat litter and cat food. One person had cat litter, another person had cat food, so it was

a discussion, just that little thing and I don't know what other platform would work so well for that.

dia (34:20) Yeah. Well, maybe they'll get their act together. Fingers crossed, right? So

Theresa Fulton (34:25) Yeah. It works, so it's working, so what can we say?

dia (34:33) the skillshare, which we did talk about. So if you have a I don't even know what sort of skills people might share, but I guess you could post and say, hey, I you know, I I know how to use a drill and I would like

Theresa Fulton (34:48) Mm.

dia (34:48) to I would like to use drill

If some you know, and I can bring my own drill if you need something drilled, you know, or pictures hung or something like that.

Theresa Fulton (34:54) Yeah, we've had people ask for

child care, you know, if they need a little bit of child care but the daycares are are completely booked and very expensive. So we've had people ask if anybody is available for a couple hours. I've had people ask them to teach certain things. I think I remember one teaching to knit and things like that. so we've had some of that as well, yeah. But Tomkins County is so good that way anyways you know, just

outside of mutual aid even, there's so many ways you can learn to do things, I think, at Tomkins County. It's a particularly good county for that sort of thing.

dia (35:32) Yeah, there are a lot of different avenues for that for sure. But even the fact that there are so many sometimes makes it hard to find exactly what you want to or know what's out there. So being able to post and say,

Theresa Fulton (35:42) Yeah, mm-hmm.

dia (35:45) this is what I need and then have somebody else say, Hey, this is something that's available.

Theresa Fulton (35:48) Yeah. Mm-hmm.

dia (35:50) like I just doing doing this show and these episodes, I have had my eyes open so much to to so much that's available here. I literally had no

clue about like I don't even know how I would find it otherwise. So it's very,

Theresa Fulton (36:02) Mm-hmm.

dia (36:04) very interesting and a really good way to reinforce the network, the community networks that folks need.

Theresa Fulton (36:10) I think it's good to get the word out, especially 'cause I still find people that haven't seen a blue cabinet. 'Cause I think if you're not looking for them that you're just driving down the road and you're not looking and you know, people don't know they're there. And we also still because of the way that Tompkins County has such a diverse range of people, these you know, there's the y

A V League universities and professors and then everything down to the homeless camp. But I have run into people like when I was I was painting repainting I'd love to repaint the cabinets. I was repainting one downtown and a person walked up to me and asked what it what it was for and I explained and he was like, are there hungry people here? I mean, you know, just so it's good it's just good to try to get the word out, really.

dia (36:56) I think it's amazing that this started just six years ago and it's blossomed and it's going so strong. How many volunteers do you have right now that are running things?

Theresa Fulton (37:06) Yeah, it's a pretty small group of regular people. We have people that and we do have a monthly meeting that's usually just a a handful of people. but we have people that like there's a couple of people I can count on to help if if I need help in with something in particular. But we do have a person that has been running the finances all these years, bless her heart.

I've started to try to help a little bit with that and since I'm creating so much of the work with the grants and the spending. we have a person that several people that handle the social media. So the there's a couple different Facebook pages. The immediate needs, you can post anything and it goes right away. We don't monitor it. The other pages we try to make sure that it's something appropriate and you know, we don't allow nasty comments at all. So there are several people that watch the

Facebook page, there's no judgmental comments, there's no like, why didn't you do that or you should have done that? No. so we have several people that just watch the pages. And then there's like the I said, a loose network of people that watch cabinets and they are invited to come to the meetings, but in general it's really a handful of people that that seriously run the day to day stuff, I'd say.

dia (38:20) that's really important information I think because there's Tompkins County has approximately a hundred thousand people in it. So it's really good to know that just a very small number of volunteers, dedicated volunteers, and then a larger loose network of folks that that check in

Theresa Fulton (38:38) Right. Mm-hmm.

dia (38:39) can have such a big impact on

Theresa Fulton (38:41) Mm-hmm.

dia (38:42) a place like this do you think that there's something

Theresa Fulton (38:44) Okay.

dia (38:45) special about the way that mutual aid is working in Ithaca here? Or do you think that what what's happening here is largely translatable outside? And what would that take?

Theresa Fulton (38:56) Yeah, that's a really good question because I don't know of many. I did run into a person in Massachusetts where they had a network, but I don't know of a lot of other ones.

I think this works well here because there are a lot of people that think about those kinds of things that have empathy and think about there's people that are unhoused,

and it's a very not judgmental group of people in this county. So I think it wouldn't work if people were more like pull yourself up by your bootstrap and stop asking for help, things like I think that would not work in a in a community that was like that.

But this community isn't like that. And part of it is the diversity. Like I said, there's just every, kind of person here.

But there just for some reason seems to be a lot of empathy in Tompkins County and understanding that this could happen to you. You know, people often say you're just one medical bill away from being homeless. People don't realize that. it could easily happen to you. so and I think that's this community does think about that sort of stuff. How do you transfer that to other communities? You know, I don't know.

But I think it would work in most places once people started to think about it.

dia (40:06) if you had advice to give to s to a small group of people who wanted to start some kind of mutual aid program, where would you advise them to begin?

Theresa Fulton (40:15) first it has to start with a group of people that have time, have commitment, and a little bit of a plan. Like the group that started this had a plan. I've been doing it for a number of years, but it's not that there has to be somebody that's gonna be doing it forever. But you have to have enough cohesiveness that

people can come and go as they can help and yet there's some continuity I think. because you can't run hot and cold something like this. You can't start that and then forget about it, never check the Facebook page and just go away.

I mean that would be terrible for the community and very hurtful. So I think some commitment, but it doesn't take like twenty people. I mean, we're small. It was small when it started. It's still small. it's just that it takes some kind of continuity, planning. Like we talk amongst ourselves a lot. I think that was how do you decide which needs to meet? Like on the immediate needs, there's many, just today there's lots of

Somebody needs gas money, somebody needed groceries, how do we decide? We talk about it amongst ourselves and say which person, which things can we help? Like I said, we can't help with a six hundred dollar thing, or then that we can only help one person and that's it. Which small things would make a big difference?

I'm the one that that has the ability to spend money and you know, access to the account. But I don't wanna make those decisions for the whole group. So I will definitely what do you think about the person? I'll ask somebody else, What do you think about the person that needs gas money? Should we try to do that? you know, the

like that. It's hard 'cause we can't meet them all. And I try not to help the same person over and over again 'cause that doesn't seem fair. So if I know that I already sent a person groceries recently, I'll look and make sure that there's nobody else that needs help first. just to be, fair, distribute the help as best we can.

dia (42:13) so how does that affect you h personally?

Theresa Fulton (42:17) Yeah.

dia (42:18) 'Cause I can imagine that that might be something that could be a little bit wearing emotionally.

Theresa Fulton (42:24) It is. Yeah. I admit I struggle with that because you never can do enough. You know, I struggle with it. Like even stocking cabinets, it's a lot of time to shop. You know, I do you my schedule right now is Mondays and Thursdays. I stock cabinets and there's a couple that I stock regularly that because I'm a Dryden and I help the ones local ones here. I always stock the one that's nearest where the homeless camp is twice a week.

And then I try to go around. But I can only do, you know, with probably five or six cabinets a week. There's 47. It's very hard for me to drive way out to Lansing. It's stuff that takes, you know, the whole day. So I always come back like I just didn't do enough. I have not been out to Newfield in a long time. You know, I know that Danby needs help. I d so I struggle with it. I don't know what to I there's no answer. I'm just I definitely struggle with that that you can never ever do enough.

But you have to just think I'm doing the best I can, I'm doing more than nothing. whatever I'm doing is beneficial, but it's definitely very much a struggle.

dia (43:34) That's important for all of us to remember, especially in these times when the needs are so great, is that doing something is better than doing nothing and nobody can do it all. So we just, we make it better as best we can

Theresa Fulton (43:45) Yeah.

dia (43:48) and we just just keep going. thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and your insights coming on.

Theresa Fulton (43:55) thanks so much for your interest in our project.

dia (44:07) Thanks for listening to the Ithaca Local Economy Lab. If you liked us and want to hear more, please be sure to share, rate, review, and subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. It's noisy in the podcast world and we need you to help us find more listeners. You can find links to all the resources mentioned, peruse our recommended books, get on our mailing list, and download your own free field guide to Ithaca's new economy at IthacaLocalEconomyLab.com.

And if you know of a local business, nonprofit, or program that you'd like to hear on the show, please send them my way. The Ithaca Local Economy Lab is produced by Practically Real Enterprises LLC and brought to life by an amazing team, including technical advisor Jake Gribschaw, Associate Producer Stacey Cornelius, content strategist Sonia Simone, and creative advisor Erin O'Shaughnessy. Yen Ospina is our artist, and the music is by Carsie Blanton. Until next time, take good care.

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