“Even after I said my needs were met, people were still offering to help me, so I decided to start a thread on Twitter where people who were immunocompromised could list their needs and people in areas still with disinfectant products could send them out,” they continued. “It became so much bigger than anticipated that I created two Google docs that have since been circulating and have been connected with other mutual aid documents and efforts, creating a national network.”

Google’s online suite of tools has become instrumental in community response to coronavirus. As seen in this list from the Anarchist Agency and activist Cindy Milstein, Google Docs and Forms are giving people a quick and easy way to ask for or offer help, and to share information and resources all over the country. That’s the case with NYC United Against Coronavirus, a Google Doc that organizer Andy Ratto told us is, in part, a chance to network neighborhood-level efforts in New York.

“I'm working with a loose coalition of friends in New York City who are starting at the building level,” Ratto explained. “When it begins moving to the neighborhood level, it becomes more challenging for people to discover what it is that's going on nearby and [to] offer themselves up in terms of assistance or [to] request help. So this project that I'm working on is one step to be able to connect people to those resources which are coming online and being mobilized throughout New York City.”

“What has been inspiring is the local organizing that I've seen in response to coronavirus,” Ratto said. “We're seeing these community organizing efforts come online, from the perspective of people saying, ‘How can I help?’” Whether that aid comes in the form of money, material goods, or volunteering, Ratto said, it’s all coming from a place of helping one another and can be quite simple measures.

“We need people to pick up pizza and coffee,” Ratto said. “And that's something that might not necessarily be intuitive to a lot of people who are used to maybe showing up to a protest for two hours, where you hold a sign and you do some chanting, you do some marching, and then you go home.”

Ratto said part of the point of having a document like the one he’s organized is that, in many cases, there may be systems in place that can benefit from the outpouring of support that seems to be materializing, helping to refocus brand-new efforts in ways to bolster existing social infrastructure.

“There's a robust system of food pantries throughout New York City because people facing food insecurity is not new in New York City,” Ratto explained. “And that's another lesson, as well, that people can take on within their communities: Look to the organizations and the organizers who have been doing this work prior to coronavirus.”

“Directing people to the existing institutions can be very helpful,” he added. “Identifying what exists already and matching up that capacity and that need is one way, I think, to move us all forward.”

For some, the institutions that already exist are, unfortunately, part of the problem. Advocates fear that’s the case for people who are incarcerated in our criminal justice or immigration detention systems (not to mention those in refugee camps), who find themselves in high-risk situations during a pandemic. That’s why Survived and Punished New York, a grassroots prison abolition group, organized a soap drive for inmates, in the hopes that they can provide incarcerated people with potentially lifesaving hygiene supplies.