Charlotte Students Create Mutual Aid Organization

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A group of high school and college students in the Charlotte area are helping people affected by COVID-19.

When Catherine McMillan returned to Charlotte from Duke she saw a big need for volunteers.

“I saw there were no grass roots efforts being organized and I wanted to start that up in Charlotte,” McMillan said.

She knew she couldn’t do it alone so she reached out to two longtime Charlotte friends, Joseph Chong and Luke Drago.

“What’s so beautiful about mutual aid is that it’s a really raw, natural, organic process of the community coming together in solidarity,” GCA Mutual Aid co-founder Joseph Chong said.

In a month, they went from being a Facebook group to being a registered nonprofit. They now have a 16 member team and dozens of volunteers.

They also partnered with Covaid, a site helping match people in need with volunteers nationally.

“It was really exciting for us when we filled our first request with someone who was immunocompromised.” Chong said. “We were able to give them a week worth of groceries and leave them on their doorstep with a contactless delivery.”

In addition to working with Covaid, they also run their own site, Covid-GCA.org. They Just launched a tutoring program as well as College Connect. They are matching college students with mentors and high school juniors with people that can help them through the college admissions process.

“It’s about knowing that we have the power to lift each other up,” McMillan said.”Building communities is the best way to do that.”