Uptown Wagon's 'free stores' provide solidarity and resources for local residents amid the pandemic's economic downturn

Upper West Side NY

11 March, 2022

2:08 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY LUCY BRENNER AND CHIMENE KEYS MARCH 10, 2022 As the COVID-19 pandemic raged on in 2020, prompting an economic downturn and widespread hardship for New York City residents, two Harlem neighbors found an opportunity to support vulnerable members of their community. What began as casual organizing between these neighbors quickly transformed into a thriving mutual aid organization in Harlem, now known as Uptown Wagon. Uptown Wagon is a mutual aid group based in Upper Manhattan whose mission is to offer solidarity and support to community members experiencing homelessness. As the pandemic continues to exacerbate financial hardships for many local residents, the group aims to provide the community with free meals, clothing, and other resources. Starting in December 2020, Uptown Wagon began holding regular "free stores"—where volunteers set up free items and services on the sidewalk outside of the Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine's 125th street office—to provide basic services and goods at no cost to community members in need. Uptown Wagon's founders, Marti Gould Cummings and Carlyn Cowen, first began working together nearly two years ago in a somewhat unexpected place: the subway. The two neighbors decided to start riding the subway at night together to hand out supplies and check in on the local homeless population. After they started posting about their efforts on social media, more community members started reaching out, and their organizing eventually led to the official creation of Uptown Wagon. "We went very quickly from two, three, four people to 20 or so volunteers," Cummings said. As Uptown Wagon attracted more volunteers, the group began to reorganize its transportation of resources. Volunteers with cars would pick up and transport meals to other volunteers, who would then heat up and eventually distribute the food on the street. "We got some wagons and we started making sandwiches and collecting clothing donations and hitting the streets really, really late at night at a time when a lot of people aren't being served," Cummings said. "We would meet at 11 p.m. on Wednesdays and go out and talk to our unhoused neighbors and … sort of [build] relationships with them." Through social media and word of mouth, Uptown Wagon has steadily grown to address the increased need for its services. By developing local partnerships with organizations like Rethink and connecting with more volunteers, Uptown Wagon has been able to offer more resources such as free meals from local businesses. "I think there are many, many, many ways in which regular people can and do help each other," Liz Ritter, a volunteer with Uptown Wagon, said. "And when we find each other, so that we can work as a group, we can all be way more effective and have much greater impact than we could if we were doing this alone." In addition to offering resources, Uptown Wagon's organizers have a larger goal of using their platform to advocate for housing justice and the housing rights of their homeless neighbors. They aim to mobilize as many community members as possible to support neighbors experiencing homelessness and housing issues. "We need to help our unhoused community and our community facing eviction," Cummings said. "We need to make sure that people can keep their homes as grocery prices rise and people are trying to take care of their families. We need to make sure that we're looking out for one another. So this is all volunteer-based. And it's just a great group of people working to help our neighbors." The regular free stores that Uptown Wagon holds are especially popular and offer goods such as clothing, groceries, books, housewares, and toys. They also provide other basic services for Harlem residents including, free haircuts, HIV testing, and COVID-19 vaccinations. "There is no price for anything," Mike Megliola, a volunteer at Uptown Wagon, said. "It's just sort of a take what you need, share what you can kind of thing. We have a lot of folks who bring donations to drop off and at the same time choose to take a few things with them." The economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic was widespread throughout New York City, but hit especially hard hit especially hard for Black and Latinx residents. In a Poverty Tracker study conducted by the nonprofit Robin Hood in partnership with Columbia, more than half of Latinx New Yorkers in the sample reported experiencing food hardship since March 2020, as did 50 percent of the Black New Yorkers surveyed. Central Harlem, a neighborhood that is 54.3 percent Black and 23.6 percent Hispanic as of 2019, was particularly impacted by the pandemic, making the work of Uptown Wagon and its free stores even more vital. According to Ritter, Uptown Wagon hopes to expand the reach of its free stores beyond the populations that it currently serves through its weekly outreach efforts. During their weekly outreach, the group engages largely with unhoused community members. However, Ritter explained that while many of the people that come to the free stores are experiencing homelessness, there are also many participants who are in tenuous housing situations but do have places to live. Though COVID-19 cases are declining citywide and many businesses and operations are beginning to reopen, placing some uncertainty around the future of the free stores, Uptown Wagon's core mission of caring for the community remains the same. "I'd love for people to just look out for their neighbors, look out for one another," Cummings said. "And I hope that this grows to be more frequent. I hope it grows to become something [where] we can get more volunteers and help others who are in need." Senior Staff Writer Lucy Brenner can be contacted at [email protected]. City News Trainee Chimene Keys can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.