Bellevue Mutual Aid: Neighbors Helping Neighbors

by Charles McGuigan 05.2020

Bellevue—bounded by Hermitage and Brook roads to the east and west, and Laburnum and Westbrook avenues to the south and north—is one of the most progressive neighborhoods in the city, peppered liberally with well-informed citizens—artists, writers, musicians, craftsmen, teachers, lawyers, and many other professionals—a group of people as diverse as the 1,200 homes—each architecturally distinctive—that make up this unique community of the Northside.

Enlightened views, coupled with progressive values, lead to compassion, so, it’s no wonder that just as COVID-19 finally struck as a reality in March, Bellevue residents, rather than hoarding for themselves, thought instead of their neighbors’ needs.

I’m sitting at a picnic table at Holton Elementary School surrounded at a safe distance by five Bellevue residents who were instrumental in launching a local mutual aid group.

“As the Coronavirus pandemic broke out,” says Liz Pettit. “I was thinking about my neighbors, especially those who are immunocompromised or might be losing their jobs, and wanted to be sure that as a neighborhood we were there for each other.”

Liz, who founded Bellevue Mutual Aid, had learned on social media about a group over in Fulton. “They were delivering meals to neighbors in need,” Liz says. “And I was inspired to contact our Bellevue Civic Association (BCA), and work on setting up a neighborhood-based mutual aid group to ensure that all of our neighbors would have access to food and resources, if they needed it.”

The BCA encouraged Liz, and helped reach out to its members to recruit volunteers for the fledgling mutual aid group.

Not long before Liz made her request of the BCA, that neighborhood group had formed a committee for engagement and outreach. It is chaired by Donald Glazer.

“It was sort of a natural progression in which the civic association had an interest in being involved in providing community support,” Donald says. “And the mutual aid group wanted to provide an avenue for community support in Bellevue. We thought we would join forces.”

In fairly short order, the BCA pitched in, handing out fliers to every household in the neighborhood. “Twelve hundred houses were informed about the mutual aid group,” says Donald, who became a sort of de facto liaison between the civic association and the mutual aid group. “Through that effort and phone calls and organizing, we ended up with a mutual aid group. Right now, we have between forty and fifty volunteers.”

It was Micah Morris who mapped out Bellevue, slicing it up into manageable sections. “When we were thinking about how best to reach everyone, we took a geographic approach,” Micah tells me. “First, we broke the neighborhood into quadrants and then from there we started to zero in and ask folks if they were willing to be block captains.”

A block captain has a variety of responsibilities. “They let their neighbors know about the resources available to them if they need anything,” says Micah. “They do check in calls, and are just generally available if a request came in for someone who lives on that block.”

Using this approach, bonds the neighbors in each block of Bellevue. “Folks have been stepping up to volunteer and really help each other out,” Micah says. “We also do weekly calls where we check in with each other, talk about projects that we’re working on.”

To date, the need for assistance in Bellevue has been minimal. “We haven’t had a ton of need in the Bellevue neighborhood yet, which is very good,” says Liz Pettit. “But we’re still maintaining our network to make sure that if any needs do arise, we’re ready to spring into action.”

Elaine Summerfield, who is running for Richmond City Council this November, was involved with Bellevue Mutual Aid early on. “As people came together around Bellevue Mutual Aid, a lot of the energy was behind people having a strong desire to do something,” she remembers. “When you think back to March, which was like a lifetime ago, people were scrambling, thinking,  ‘Okay, we’re going to need assistance, perhaps ourselves, but in the meantime we can be helping others and we can be sharing what we have with our neighbors in Bellevue, as well as across the community.’”

Although Bellevue residents haven’t needed much in the way of assistance, there are areas of our city where there is a keen need for some of life’s basics. “We have done something that included a supply drive and a food drive to collect items for people who were facing, maybe, food insecurity, or couldn’t access those paper goods that were disappearing off the shelves,” says Elaine. “So those items were distributed through partnerships with the RVA Mutual Aid group, which is a larger mutual aid group that’s really active in the community, as well as with Community 50/50, and the Jackson Ward Youth Team serving the Jackson Ward and Gilpin communities, and also at the Calhoun Center in Gilpin Court. Just making sure that our neighbors were surviving and thriving as much as possible. That has really been a way to get people involved, but I think we can be doing more.”

Less than a year ago, Jami Bricker moved into Bellevue. She liked the houses, the tree-lined streets, but mainly the people and the sense of community there.

“As soon as I moved to the neighborhood, I got involved with the civic association and offered to assist with social media so when they started up the mutual aid effort they reached out and asked if I would help them with social media,” says Jami. “So I set up the Facebook and Instagram accounts that we use to try to increase our visibility and find out the best ways that we can direct our efforts.”

Jami Bricker looks out to the raised beds that surround Hudson House at Holton’s Dandelion Garden. Standing a good twelve feet apart, and each sporting a face mask, are the other members of the Bellevue Mutual Aid group. Jami gestures towards them. “It all gets done with a lot of help from these guys, and all our volunteers,” she says. “It’s really been a group effort.”

To get involved, visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/bellevuemutualaid/