Photo courtesy of Cactus Club
Solidarity Supper Club - Cactus Club
Diners enjoy the first Solidarity Supper Club event at the Cactus Club in Bay View
In such alarming and bleak political times, it is imperative for communities to create spaces for sharing any skills, aid and resources that could help someone in need. Bay View’s Cactus Club has long been a hub for not only art and live music but social justice and community events as well, and the storied venue recently debuted a Community Resilience program where folks may connect over shared values and learn useful, practical skills by way of workshops, trainings and mutual aid. The series is structured around three core pillars: learning, connection and continuity.
Community member Joe Kirschling first brought the idea for Community Resilience to Kelsey Kaufmann of Cactus Club out of his growing concern for the mass implications of issues like climate change, cuts to Medicaid, tariffs, A.I. and digital disinformation.
“The state of the world is pretty uncomfortable in more than one way,” Kirschling says. “Things are going sour, and I wanted to take some action.”
Give us the Power
Kirschling recalls when earlier this year, a wireless phone company servicing northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula got hacked, knocking communities out of cell phone service for extended periods of time. “There’s all these other things, like the growing intensity of storms that can take out power, and generally we’ve been able to recover from these types of things quickly, but what do we do if power is out for more than a day?”
He felt Cactus Club was ideal since the venue had been doing community-oriented programming of the sort already. Kirschling continues, “We have food and medicine and technology and all these things, but what happens when they start to get disrupted?”
Cactus Club Program Coordinator Gosha Ananchev echoes this sentiment, adding about the program’s necessity, “It serves as an important reminder about the taken-for-granted parts of everyday life that hold everything together. We’re happy to have CRC fit so well into Cactus Plus’ Harm Reduction Series programming, which underscores the broad intersections of harm reduction and mutual aid as tied to health care access, food and housing justice, and environmentalism.”
Community Concept
The Community Resilience series has four main focus areas, each facilitated with an accompanying zine outlining key information. The first, “10-4 Good Buddy!”, trains folks on how to engage in community-powered communication using walkie-talkies, secure digital messaging and zines or prints, as well as how to secure one’s personal data.
Second is the Cactus Cultivation Community, led by Rachel Skoczek, where folks may learn about community gardening and urban agriculture with skills like seed saving, planting garden beds, ethical foraging, canning and food storage, and food waste reduction. A long-term project of this piece is the implementation of a free community fridge and pantry at Cactus Club.
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Photo courtesy of Cactus Club
Solidarity Supper Club wraps - Cactus Club
Vegan wraps served at the first Solidarity Supper Club event at the Cactus Club
The third piece is the Solidarity Supper Club, where free, vegan community meals will be served at the venue, coordinated by chefs Monroe Briggs and JP Young of Odd Duck, with support from pantry donations and local garden bounty. This focus area involves initiatives like donating to local food drives, soup kitchens and shelters. The first Solidarity Supper Club took place earlier this month and featured produce generously donated by Farmer John at Farm Happy LLC in Jackson, Wisconsin, with leftovers brought to Casa Maria Hospitality House and a sober living facility on Milwaukee’s East Side.
Fourth and final is “Sawbones,” which encompasses first aid training and teaching folks how to build basic medical kits. Blood drives and volunteer medic corps are long-term projects here. The first Sawbones workshop is this Sunday, July 27 at noon.
Ananchev observes that everyone involved in the Community Resilience program so far has shown great enthusiasm, generosity and trust. “All of these are not just background elements but crucial to the whole concept of community. I appreciate the way the series is connecting a relatively wide range of topics and skillsets.”
Following Sawbones, the Community Resilience program will then cycle back through all four focus areas. “We want to teach people new skills while also keeping those people engaged and practicing those skills,” Kirschling notes. “Then they can turn the skills around to help serve the community.”
