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GSA Care Corner
Launch Party - October 19 | 1 PM - 3 PM | SLC 3216
Mutual Aid
Mutual aid is a system of cooperation amongst community members to care for and provide for one another. Author and activist Dean Spade has described mutual aid projects as “letting us practice meeting our own and each other’s needs, based in shared commitments to dignity, care, and justice. They let us practice coordinating our actions together with the belief that all of us matter and that we should all get to participate in the solutions to our problems” (Spade 2020). Mutual aid provides a means of lightening the burden of financial stress, something experienced by many graduate students, while building community and solidarity.
One form of mutual aid that has had success in communities around the world is the creation of Free Stores, which provide community members with access to a range of material goods at no financial cost.
GSA Care Corner
The GSA Care Corner is a shelf located in the SLC Grad Lounge that is stocked with items that are 100% free for graduate students to take. It is always open and can be accessed anytime by using your WatCard to enter the Grad Lounge. The Free Store contains items from four categories:
Our Free Store is a mutual aid initiative, built on the pillars of trust, respect, community, and cooperation. The goal of the GSA Care Corner is to provide our grad students with access to essential and non-essential items, and to foster a sense of community care by encouraging a reciprocal system where folks take what they need and donate what they can. To ensure that we can sustain the Free Store long-term, we ask that folks be respectful of the space and take only what they need and will use.
Health and Wellness
Arts and Crafts Supplies
School Supplies
Literature
Accepted Donation Items
Donations for the Care Corner can be dropped off at the GSA Office during our operating hours. We currently accept donations from four categories: health and wellness, school supplies, art supplies, and literature (a more detailed list of accepted items is available below). All items should be clean and in good condition.
When you arrive at the GSA Office to donate items, our Office Coordinator will let you know whether your items meet the donation criteria for the Care Corner. While we appreciate all donations, if your items do not meet our criteria, they will be donated to the Sustainability Office Free Store or another nonprofit community store.
If you are unsure of whether an item you’d like to donate meets our criteria, or if you have suggestions for items you would like to see in the Free Store that are not on our accepted items list, please feel free to reach out to our Equity Coordinator (gsa-equt@uwaterloo.ca).
List of Accepted Items
Health and wellness items. Examples include:
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Unopened soap and lotion
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Sterile N95 face masks
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Hot water bottles, heat packs, and hand warmers
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Menstrual products
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First aid kits/ supplies
Art/craft supplies. Examples include: -
Paint, canvases, and paintbrushes
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Pencils, coloured pencils, markers
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Yarn, crochet hooks, knitting needles, sewing supplies
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Air dry clay
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Unused colouring books
Literature. Examples include: -
Books
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Zines
School supplies. Examples include: -
Unused notebooks, pens, pencils, highlighters, etc.
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USB drives (please delete any files before donating)
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Unused agendas and planners
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Sticky notes and other stationary
How we Chose Our Categories for Accepted Items
Health-related items and school supplies are essential for graduate students, and their inclusion in the free store aims to help ensure that our graduate students have what they need for success both in and outside of school. The inclusion of wellness- and creativity- related items along with literature speaks to the importance of access to items beyond the essentials needed to survive. These are items that can improve mental health and quality of life, but that we know many students do not have the means to afford. Our aim is to make these items more accessible to our community. As labour activists and gender equity activists have stated throughout history, “give us bread but give us roses”, or, in other words, we deserve survival, but we also deserve beauty, fulfillment, wellness, and creativity.
Accessibility
We strive to make our Care Corner as accessible as possible. If you have suggestions for ways we can improve accessibility, please reach out to our Equity Coordinator (gsa-equt@uwaterloo.ca)
Questions?
For more information on GSEF, including how graduate students can apply for project funding, please visit www.gsef.uwaterloo.ca. To find out how you can get involved, or if you have other questions, please contact the Coordinator at gsef@uwaterloo.ca.