Free Snow Shoveling This Winter For Those In Need!
East End Mutual Aid, a neighborhood association for residents of Bloomfield, Garfield, Friendship, and East Liberty is offering free residential snow shoveling this winter for those in need as a part of the Helping Hands Hotline. The Hotline was started with the intent to improve the quality of life in the community by offering assistance to residents in a variety of capacities including delivering groceries, helping with small repairs, taking care of animals, and snow shoveling. With winter fast approaching, we wanted to inform members of the community who may be in need of show shoveling on how they can request assistance.
How it works:
1: Individuals sign up their home addresses to the list of those requesting assistance at www.eastendmutualaid.org/hotline or by calling 412-385-3362
2: When a storm hits our volunteers are dispatched to the houses on the list. We shovel the public areas outside the home and inquire if any other specific help is needed.
3: We additionally staff a hotline during the storm for anyone needing immediate help
Sign-up:
If you or someone you know will need help this winter
If you would like to volunteer
If you find yourself in need of help during a snowstorm
Getting the word out!
We are going door to door to hand out information on this and our other projects.
For questions, concerns, feedback, and other communications get in touch at 412-385-3362
Additional information:
Volunteers do not go inside houses, unless there is a specific request for help with something inside the home, and we do not accept compensation. This is an all-volunteer, free service, no monetary payment or tipping is accepted. We are doing this in furtherance of our group’s commitment to community mutual aid.
More on the Hotline:
This is a free*, all volunteer effort, intended to improve the quality of life in the community.
What We Offer: This list will continue to evolve with time and input
-Help with unexpected short term emergencies such as temporary feeding and taking care of animals, getting and delivering groceries, or providing rides to medical appointments.
-Small home repairs and outside work such as fixing leaky faucets, patching small holes in dry wall, changing light bulbs, installing fixtures, and weeding.
-Winter Help! Snow shoveling/de-icing.
Why We’re Doing This:
Our group members were, and are, continually heartened by the way people in the East End go out of their way to take care of one another and the ways that even seemingly innocuous practices help the community. People sitting on thier porches, offering to shovel their neighbor’s walkway, saying hello to those on the street, lending tools, looking after kids playing, etc.
During the big snow storms of 2010 we saw this first hand, and were ourselves out most days helping people push their cars out. While the community response was impressive we were saddened to see that some residents were unable to get out of their homes due to difficulty shoveling.
Upon reflection we saw the need for a grassroots mechanism to solve seemingly small needs that can otherwise produce great hardship.
The aim of this project then is to create a sustainable network of support out of the various skills and resources our community has to offer one another, while simultaneously becoming better acquainted with our neighbors, creating strong bonds that strengthen our community as a whole.
Who’s Involved:
Right now those offering services are members of East End Mutual Aid. We hope to soon develop procedures through which we can open the project up to the wider community.
Please Note: Our services are available to anyone needing help, but we are constrained by limited time and resources. Our intention with this project is to help those needing help, with the hope that over time we can build a larger network of mutual-aid and support within our neighborhoods. This is not a service to chauffeur people around to or from bars, save someone the hassle of riding transit, or do work someone finds personally unpleasant. Our intention to fill the void of support that exists when people find themselves in a jam, or are having difficulty meeting a need they were previously able to take care of. This is not to replace the very real bounds of support that already exist between friends and neighbors, nor are we aiming to take business away from small contractors.
For more information: please contact info@eastendmutualaid.org, 412-385-3362, P.O Box 90275 Pittsburgh PA 15224, or visit www.eastendmutualaid.org.
*This is an all volunteer, not for profit labor effort for which we will accept NO financial compensation. We cannot afford to pay for material costs. For instance, if you are ill and unable to leave home and need food: we can pick and deliver any medicine or food but would need reimbursed for the cost of the items themselves.
this is So exactly what we need to do.
Hi eema. I’m a little familiar with electrical and some basic handyman work. Not a whole lot of experience, I’m young, but I did go to school for and had temp work doing electrical, and had temp work remodeling. So I should be able to be a liitle useful. If sombody’s got themselves in a jam involving things like that, and eema’s in a jam not having somebody available to help the person out, you could try and call me. My number’s 412-xxx-xxxx. Oh yeah, and anything else. Not just trades like that. I’d be glad to help when I can
Thanks eema!