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Dear Germantown Community Members and Friends,

GREAT- Germantown Residents for Economic Alternatives Together was incorporated as a non-profit organization in 2018. This was the result of a vision for Germantown that began with starting a community land trust, and evolved to include various forms of resource-sharing, collective learning, growing and producing, taking care of one another, creativity and experimentation, as well as a decentralized and fluid approach to leadership. We’ve since been steadily growing with intention-- identifying ways to build our capacity in response to the interests, needs, energy, and resources of our community, both internally and externally.

As we reflect on 2024 and look ahead to 2025, we invite you to support with a donation.

While fundraising from individuals has generally not been a key focus of our leadership, we are currently working to shift our reliance on grant funding so that we can have more predictability and sustainability of resources, can create more paid opportunities for more community leadership, and can have more power to determine our own priorities.

Our total expense budget for the last fiscal year was about $72,000. Scroll down to see a summary of where that money went.

This year we had 7 folks being paid for their work in steady roles ranging from very part-time to full-time, in addition to stipends for 3 Community Connectors, 3 short-term project coordination roles, and 2 event leaders. In prior years, we had just 0-3 steady paid roles.

Several new projects were launched in 2024, including:

Housing Working Groups for mutual aid, organizing, and outreach
Cooperative farm at Awbury Arboretum
Water Resilience Community Connectors
Fire Safety Community Connectors
New Learning Circles

Read on to learn more!

Donations of all sizes are helpful and appreciated.

Donations can be made by:

Check- Made out to GREAT or Germantown Residents for Economic Alternatives Together, mailed to PO Box 48011 Philadelphia, PA 19144

PayPal- click donate button below (PayPal will deduct a fee)

CashApp- $GreatGtown

Please feel free to reach out with any questions! Thank you in advance for your support.

Sincerely,

GREAT Steering Committee Members: Marie-Monique Marthol, Maleka Fruean, Lindsay Stolkey, Howard Bailey, and Dionne Chambers

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Here are a few examples of how funds can be utilized / what our activities really cost:

Community Connectors project- facilitator, coordinator, stipends, supplies, materials ::: $12,000

Community Connectors project- participant stipends only ::: $4800

Annual Dr. King Day event- planning/coordinating, outreach, food, childcare, space ::: $3000

Space rental for 3 giveaway/swap events ::: $750

Housing newsletter snail mail ::: $250

Food for a committee meeting ::: $100 - $200

Childcare during a meeting ::: $75

Community leadership

At the beginning, GREAT was entirely volunteer-run. Two years in, in 2020 while running the Germantown Mutual Aid Fund, we created our first paid roles. We’ve since created paid roles for several community members, in varying capacities, responding to the needs of the group and building on leadership potential.

All of GREAT’s leadership, paid or volunteer, are Germantown community members. Our fundraising push, we hope, will support our ability to continue growing our capacity and supporting more community leaders.

Meet some of our leaders:

YONIQUE

Yonique got involved with GREAT in 2018 and this year became our Housing Organizer. Sharing her own experience with housing insecurity and her passion for housing justice, Yonique has forwarded our effort to get information about housing resources into the hands of those who need it, while infusing creativity, focused leadership, and intentional partnerships to other aspects of our housing work.

"What really motivates me is the fact that I had a history of housing insecurity and I understand how a person feels when they don't have stable housing, and how difficult it is to get housing that is affordable to the particular individual ... we cannot lump everybody in one group and categorize them as being ... undesirable to the community, just because somebody cannot afford to pay a particular amount of rent."

WEBB

Webb first got involved via a Learning Circle and has since been a core volunteer and Food & Seeds Committee member, co-led our cooperative farm at Awbury this year by hosting weekly workdays, and last year led an at-home container garden support project.

"Gardening is not that difficult. You put a plant a seed in the soil and you water it and give it some sun, things come up, okay? ... And just seeing how you can go into a patch of dirt and make it do a beautiful thing with a little patience, a little love, I think calms you down..."

SUSAN

Susan helped launch the Germantown Mutual Aid Fund in 2020 and later became GREAT’s Bookkeeper. She’s also an integral part of the Emergency Preparedness Committee with a dedication to keeping family housing and families safe in Germantown.

Community Connectors

In 2024 we piloted a new version of what we refer to as “Community Connectors,” with a grant from the Philadelphia Office of Sustainability. Focused on the theme of water and flood resilience, GREAT played an ongoing support role to folks doing a relevant project with their neighbors- Neighbors Organizing Neighbors.

At monthly check-ins, the leaders came together and shared their updates, challenges, needs for support, and next steps. By GREAT holding the space for these meetings, there is mutual support as folks create their own approach to project organizing that is specific to their neighbors, the needs of their block, the local geography, as well as their own skills and personalities.

Projects included sign-up for free rain barrels through the City, sharing stories about personal history of water access, and in an apartment building that experiences frequent water supply disruptions they made a plan and purchased supplies to help with storage and access during disruption.

We’re excited about growing and expanding the Community Connectors model to include other themes and focus areas. We believe that decentralized leadership and a neighbor-to-neighbor approach are incredibly important for creating deep and sustainable community resilience.

Water Resilience Community Connectors- Anita, Allison, and Christina:

Housing Organizing

This year we completed writing our Housing Justice Values, are working with a local graphic designer, and will be distributing the finished booklet beginning during our Annual Dr. King Day Beloved Community gathering in January. This document reflects the foundation of our housing organizing work.

Our strategy is about building support for deeply affordable housing in various forms, using our collective resources to effect deep systemic change within local development, institutions, organizations, and even on the block level, as well as helping people realize their power. While building our base of support, we will break down divides and work together, grow our skills and knowledge, and reimagine what success looks like.

Learn more about our housing organizing strategy here.

Marie is core to GREAT’s housing and emergency preparedness work, and provides Project Support on an ongoing basis. She helps keep GREAT’s mission and core values in sight while guiding the development of new projects and initiatives.

"... the conversation around what values do we want to have regarding housing and what is just and right and necessary for Germantown? And also having a culture that says low-income housing, deeply accessible housing, is actually what Germantowners need, we need more of that.
... whether we have businesses here, we work here, we live here, we're newcomers, we've had family ties here for multiple generations. We all have a role to play."

Summary list of activities we did in 2024:

Food

Started cooperative farm at Awbury Arboretum
Gardened at the People’s Lot
Swap Seeds & Stories
Annual Seed Exchange
Seed-Saving Series
Build-a-Garden-Bed Workshop
Canning Party

Housing

Annual Dr. King Day event- practiced responding to housing/development issues
Outreach effort to share information with community members
Expanded core group, started Working Group projects- Mutual Aid, Outreach, and Organizer’s Guide
Wrote / edited / solicited feedback on Housing Justice Values
Gentrification & Germantown Learning Circle
Started monthly housing newsletter
Joined Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities

Emergency Preparedness

Fire Safety & Prevention Workshop
Water Working Group research
Water & Flood Resilience Community Connectors- rain barrels, water history, emergency storage and access

And…

Grassroots Fundraising & the Non-Profit Industrial Complex Mini Learning Circle
3 Swap / Giveaways

^ This list is public-facing activities and doesn’t account for the relationship building, new partnerships and collaborations, and internal capacity building we’ve also done.

Here are a few projects and things we have coming up this Winter:

Fire Safety Community Connectors

Emergency Prep Learning Circle

Food & Freedom Learning Circle

Grassroots Fundraising and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex Learning Circle

Climate Resilience Planning with Academy of Natural Sciences begins

5th Annual Dr. King Day Beloved Community Gathering - Jan. 20th

The release of our Housing Justice Values document

The official launch of our Housing Organizing Strategy

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Other ways to help with our fundraising drive:

Forward this webpage to a friend

Share the videos on social media. There are shorter clips we will be posting soon on Facebook and Instagram.

Send a message to members of your fellow church group, parent group, your neighbors... This content is also available in a PDF, and in hard copy form.

Host a small gathering at your home and invite donations.