Spread Wealth, Shop Seconds

Spread wealth, shop seconds
About 20% of the pots that we make don’t pass our standards for a pot that can be sold at full retail. You can read all about these imperfect pots—or “Seconds” as they’re called here.
 
Since October 2020, we’ve added inventory to our seconds collection that you can shop at 20% off retail. We periodically introduce a non-profit, grassroots organization or individual working toward racial equity, community reconciliation and supporting the liberation of folks who’ve been systematically oppressed by white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity.
 
Since we began this project, we and the organizations we've partnered with have been pleased with the response, and judging from the Seconds we've sold, our customers are, too. So it’s working! We ask you to learn about the work they do and point you to where to donate to sustain that work. Donate any dollar amount, submit your screenshot (we’ll show you how down below) and you’ll get a password to shop the Seconds Collection.

In January, February and March, we're asking you to give to...

Free99Fridge

Free99Fridge and volunteers in Atlanta
Founded in July 2020, Free99Fridge is an Atlanta-based grassroots organization that fights for food justice for its neighbors. In Free99Fridge's own words, "We provide high quality produce and non-perishable food at no cost to anyone who wants or needs it via our community fridge network. Our community fridges are stocked and maintained by volunteers, growers, and local businesses who see value in supporting their community. This is a community-run, community-backed effort. Our crew of volunteers make this project what it is. We are a solution-oriented collective aiming to build up community and end food disparities in Atlanta one fridge at a time."
 
Free99Fridge uses a mutual aid model, meaning that anyone can take food from the four community fridges that are set up in Atlanta neighborhoods: no enrollment paperwork, no qualifications, no approval process of any sort. Mutual aid also means that anyone can place food and other necessities in the refrigerators (here are the guidelines for donating).
Free99Fridge community partner with East Fork
 
Your donation will help fund daily operations such as purchasing food to stock the community fridges for neighbors in-need and support their Winter Relief Sites seasonal project providing overnight shelter from the cold for their unhoused neighbors. Volunteers drive Free99Fridge, in many cases, quite literally: They transport donations and even the refrigerators themselves to where they’re needed in the city. Re-stocking each of the four locations currently needs to happen every one to three hours, every single day, because that's how quickly the the community fridges empty. Your donations will also help cover the costs of gas and vehicle maintenance necessary for making many of those trips.
Free99Fridge - mutual aid food organization
 
In case you're wondering how Free99Fridge got its name, as Latisha Springer, Free99Fridge's founder, puts it on the organization's website, "'free99' is an urban expression used to describe the price of an object or service that should‘ve cost you money, but you got it for free instead. Our community fridges provide high-quality food for $free.99, so the name was a no-brainer for me."
 
For more about Free99Fridge, read our interview with their founder, Latisha Springer.

Let's get started!

1. Donate any dollar amount to Free99Fridge now until March 31st, 2022.

2. Take a screenshot of your donation receipt or record

 

3. Send that screenshot to care@eastfork.com with "Free99Fridge" as the subject. If you do not put "Free99Fridge" as the subject line, you will not receive a response.

 

4. You'll receive a response from our Care team as soon as digitally possible* with the link and password to the seconds collection! That password will be good until March 31st, 2022. Please do not share your password with anyone!

 

5. If you have questions for our Care Team, please send a separate email at care@eastfork.com.

 

*It may take a moment to receive that email—sometimes 1 minute, sometimes 15 minutes (technology, am I right?). Please check your spam folder or resend the email if you get no response after that time.

Why do I have to donate? Why doesn't East Fork just donate?

Selling our Seconds online presents an opportunity to, beyond generating revenue for us and offering nearly-perfect products at a discount not just during periodic sales but year-round, help habitualize wealth-spreading practices. We want to challenge the notion that giving is always about mailing a big check to an organization. If you have purchased Seconds online from East Fork since October 2020 when we started this project, you've seen that you can give any amount at all (everyone gets the same access to our Seconds) and do it online with just a couple of clicks.
 
We hope this process makes you curious about the goals your donation supports and the needs it helps to address. That's why we send you to our Community Partners' websites. You may find that what you learn makes you want to donate again sometime, or tell other people about their mission or refer them to the organizations' programs and services. It could lead you to people in your own community doing similar work and this is how you decide to get involved. Or, in a certain organization, you see a template for what could work in your community, as well. In all of these, we see possibilities for moving beyond the transactional nature of making a donation to access discounted pottery and it's with that that we don't just earmark funds for organizations and tell our customers about it later.

What is wealth redistribution?

Wealth redistribution is the movement of money, property and social clout or access from one population of individuals to another through some sort of social-societal catalyst. That catalyst could be voluntary, like “charitable giving” and “philanthropy,” or it could be mandated by the government in the form of state and federal redistribution programs like taxation, welfare, public services or land reform.

Why is wealth redistribution not the answer?

Most wealth has been acquired, grown, passed down, and hoarded within a framework of supremacy, by siphoning resources away from marginalized populations across the globe. Wealth redistribution keeps the power in the hands of the oppressors and oppressive systems. It asks that people and institutions who have access to stolen wealth and resources use their discretion to sympathetically and incrementally give access to that wealth to others who have less. In short—the oppressor chooses where and how funds are redistributed; often this redistribution still primarily benefits the oppressor. Regardless of good intentions, this process edifies the very supremacy it attempts to circumvent.

What is wealth reclamation? How is it different?

The concept of wealth reclamation acknowledges that the way wealth is distributed, hoarded and grows is dictated by an ethos of supremacy. And that white people, corporations, and nations functioning in a supremacy culture have stolen wealth from Brown and Black people. Wealth reclamation acknowledges that something that has been stolen cannot simply be redistributed without reconciliation. Reclamation is defined by the Wealth Reclamation Academy of Practitioners as “the equitable and just distribution of resources.” This process relies on “resource mobilizers” use of Black feminist values, radical inclusivity and intersectionality, working in tandem with marginalized communities to steward the rechanneling of “the flow of social and material wealth back into social justice movement and community building.”

How can we participate in wealth reclamation?  

If we really, truly want to make our world more equitable we must be willing to “move up off of stuff”—as Clarissa’s mom used to say—in order to make space for folk who have historically been excluded and kept from building and living the life that feels best to them. Somewhere in these active processes of “moving up off of,” we allow space for what is just.

What are reparations?

To be clear—stand-alone actions like us asking our audience to donate money in exchange for something is not reparations, and let me tell you why: According to the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) Reparations Now Toolkit, in order for the process of reparations to be justly and thoroughly completed, five conditions must be present:

      • Cessation, assurances, and guarantees of non-repetition
      • Reinstitution and repatriation
      • Compensation
      • Satisfaction
      • Rehabilitation

Without all of these conditions, an action does not meet the qualifiers to be considered an act of reparations. Those who embark on this process need to know it will be lengthy, that they will need to remain communicative and mindful, and avoid working in silos. Participating in wealth reclamation in the way we’re suggesting here only meets the criteria of compensation. That’s not “wrong” or “bad”— it’s just not the whole deal. But this first step can get us to thinking:

 

What would it look like for us as a global society to push to see the complete processes of reparations fulfilled in our communities?

 

Exciting question, right?