After Hurricane Helene, we promised ourselves that we wouldn't go through another disaster without a battery backup for our rooftop solar. Thanks to the folks at Footprint Project, we're on track to install 20kWh of battery capacity for our building this month!

So now want to pay it forward. On Thursday, October 9th, we'll be donating net proceeds from all sales in-store and online to the Feral Crust Infoshop in Davao, Philippines. This longstanding eco-anarchist project is a living experiment based on principles of mutual aid, cooperation and ecology. So buy a book (or two) and the donated sale will help to fund upgrades to Feral Crust's off-grid electrical infrastructure and rainwater harvesting systems!

https://firestorm.coop/catalog/new.html

#HurricaneHelene #MutualAidDisasterRelief #FeministBookstore #EcoAnarchism #Infoshop #FirestormCoop (- L)

This weekend marks a year since Hurricane Helene poured into our mountains, creating both big C catastrophe and small C communism. To grapple with what we'd experienced, we created a Disaster Reading Group, initially focused on exploring Rebecca Solnit's "A Paradise Built In Hell." It was a wildly successful space, filling our bookstore to capacity for biweekly discussions. The group became a container for friendships forged in the chaos of last September alongside new relationships premised on a shared desire to process the worst, and hold onto the best, of the storm days.

Like other containers created for folks to find one another post-Helene, the reading group served as a launch pad for a multitude of organically organized activities, spaces, and dreams. In the new year, as we slipped from infrastructural crisis into political crisis, our group developed into a place to process the horror of watching fascism reassert itself within the US American body writ large, an anti-solidarity antithesis of what we'd co-created as storm survivors.

We know that Helene will continue to fall further behind us, with new storms looming. And while what we experienced will stay with us forever, it's time to wind down this particular space that was created for our grief and joy as survivors. The final reading cycle will, appropriately enough, return us to Helene and our own stories.

Whether or not you've attended in the past, you're invited to join on Monday, Oct 6th to discuss "Appalachia the Catastrophe," the final issue of the incredible Mergoat Magazine. Copies can be found at our shop or purchased through our website with a 10% discount using promo code BEHOLDEN. We'll be splitting the publication—replete with photos, poetry, art, and essays—into two sessions followed by a final potluck to send us off into the next adventure, no doubt full of both terror and unanticipated possibilities. We hope you can join us!

#HurricaneHelene #AshevilleStrong #MutualAidDisasterRelief #FeministBookstore (- L)

One week from today, our post-Helene reading group is back with a very appropriate new book pick! Participants will be reading "Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead" by renowned scholar and activist Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.

New folks welcome! 🌊❄️💧

"Theory of Water" is a resonant exploration of an intricate, multi-layered relationship with the most abundant element on our planet—one that is shaping our present even as it demands a radical rethinking of how we might achieve a just future. Copies are available at a discount from our co-op and will be made available without charge to participants who cannot afford a purchase.

This series is co-facilitated by Lauren Miller and will include four sessions bisected by a potluck. Additional details and schedule can be found at https://firestorm.coop/events/3423-theory-of-water-a-disaster-reading-group.html.

#HurricaneHelene #MutualAidDisasterRelief #TheoryOfWater #AnarchistBookClub #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

"In moments of disaster, our communities will be abandoned by the powers that be. We must demonstrate that our ability to self-govern is better at meeting our needs than the corporations’ or state’s supposed mandate to govern. And we must not just govern under the existing structures; rather, we me must remake the shape of governance to be more democratic and ecologically responsive – from the state house to the workplace to the blocks where we live.

For too long the people who live and care for the places they call home have been intentionally dispossessed of the decision making power to govern their home. In moments of disaster this unjust power dynamic of the Extractive Economy leads to harmful, unaccountable decision making that doesn’t put the wellbeing of people and the land at the forefront of recovery. It sets up the same oppressive systems of power to lead not just the recovery efforts, but the economy and infrastructure that is built in the disaster’s wake."

https://movementgeneration.org/transition-is-inevitable-justice-is-not-a-critical-framework-for-just-recovery/

#Anarchy #Anarchism #MutualAid #MutualAidDisasterRelief #CommunitySelfDefense #EmergencyPreparedness

At the end of last year, while reading Rebecca Solnit's "A Paradise Built in Hell," many of us encountered the idea of "post-traumatic growth"—a sort of inverse PTSD, where individuals experience increased resilience, strengthened relationships, and personal empowerment as a result of a traumatic event. Excited by this phenomenon (and our own brush with it), a member of our reading group has worked with a friend in clinical psychology to facilitate a presentation and deeper conversation about the power of community in uncertain times.

Please join us on Tuesday at 6:30pm for an in-person discussion and workshop that draws on academic research and our own experiences as disaster survivors to explore the idea of post-traumatic growth!

More information can be found at https://firestorm.coop/events/3381-together-we-rise.html

#PostTraumaticGrowth #PTSD #HurricaneHelene #MutualAid #MutualAidDisasterRelief #WeKeepUsSafe #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

Next weekend Firestorm will be hosting author David Vaina for an in-person conversation with local Appalachian organizers about his new book "On-Ramps to a New Civil Society: Mutual Aid at the Edges of the Anthropocene," an autonomist reimagining of labor, value, mutual aid, and revolution. They'll discuss the present moment of institutional decline, where a political void has emerged in addressing our collective needs, and how mutual aid can contribute to the development of a radically new society.

Learn more and find copies of "On-Ramps to a New Civil Society" at https://firestorm.coop/events/3331-mutual-aid-revolution-a-conversation-with-david-vaina.html.

#MutualAid #DualPower #MutualAidDisasterRelief #HurricaneHelene #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

This looks interesting. Found on Facebook from #MutualAidDisasterRelief , who say to email [email protected] with questions or to RSVP or you can text Malik at 504-428-4177 so they make sure to have enough supplies for everyone.

I'm going!

#DisasterPreparedness #community #NOLA #MutualAid #ClimateChangeIsReal #HurricaneSeason

https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/about/

#MutualaidDisasterRelief

New hours! ⏰ New operations! 📋

Early last week, as more capacity came online for distribution of relief supplies in our neighborhood, we made the decision to begin winding down our own distro operations and shift focus to reopening. This will allow us to serve as a space with resources needed by long term grassroots efforts related to both Hurricane Helene and preexisting challenges within our community.

Beginning today, and continuing for at least the next two weeks, Firestorm will be open to the public every day from 3pm to 7pm. We will also be making our space available outside of those hours for community events and other activities, particularly in relation to disaster relief. If you are part of a grassroots group that needs a warm, welcoming spot for coworking, meeting, or an event, hit us up!

Although we are no longer operating as a distro, Firestorm will continue to maintain a small inventory of supplies for neighbors, and we'll remain an access site for non-potable water from Be Well AVL (@bewellavl). We also plan to offer potable water with support from Distribute Aid (@distributeaid) and help staff the new Mutual Aid Switchboard, created with others in the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief network (@mutualaiddisasterrelief).

#HurricaneHelene #ClimateChange #MutualAidDisasterRelief #MutualAid #QueerSouth #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

The morning Hurricane Helene hit Asheville, members of our collective sat in the dark, listening to the howling wind and the crack of huge trees falling all around. When we emerged Friday evening to take stock, a cardboard sign on our co-op’s door read “Community meeting here, Saturday at 2pm. Let’s talk about how we can take care of each other + community.” That first autonomous act by an anonymous neighbor set the stage for the week, with Firestorm becoming a container for other people’s brilliant, beautiful, and generous self-organizing.

About forty people attended the first meeting. Nearly four hundred attended the next one. The gatherings, now a daily anchor, have generated a multitude of connections and volunteer powered projects. Before city officials had finished assessing the damage, community members were sharing supplies, doing wellness checks, and serving hot meals. Over the next few days, things became more organized. Anarchist arborists collected chainsaws and dispatched crews to clear roads for trapped residents; activists mobilized to build long term water distribution systems capable of delivering 6k gallons/day; bike punks offered free repair clinics; a farmer began driving regular water supply loops to Firestorm from a nearby spring; and an enthusiastic DIY-er set up a tent to distribute dry toilets made from affordable materials.

In the midst of this anarchic moment, Firestorm isn’t setting the agenda or directing anyone—we’re offering a space that welcomes independent initiative, we’re supporting the exchange of critical information, and we’re modeling a do-it-ourselves approach that’s responsive, experimental, and human-scale.

Yes, government and NGO aid is now flowing into the region—but the work of caring for one another continues to be done by neighbors, grassroots organizations, small businesses, and activists. It’s done voluntarily, with thousands of autonomous actions synchronized through a shared solidarity. For a brief moment, the logic of the capitalist market is suspended, care is given freely, and everyone contributes what they can.

It’s a strange paradox that the utopia we dream of becomes most visible in the dark.

#HurricaneHelene #MutualAid #Anarchism #Cooperativism #MutualAidDisasterRelief #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop