Nirvana WOK Newsletter #1 - January 2025
Mutual Aid Since 2020
Our Mission
Nirvana World of Kindness distributes food, beverages and other essential goods to people in need.
About Nirvana WOK
Nirvana WOK started in 2020 as a mutual aid project dropping off meals packed in Chinese food takeout containers to food insecure people in Seattle.
Since then our street team has been active handing out hot food, snacks, cash gifts and other items to people in need.
This has been a side project for me since the pandemic. I currently work managing a kitchen for Operation Nightwatch - a nonprofit that serves 150 meals every night. There is no affiliation between Nirvana WOK and Nightwatch, although they knew I did mutual aid when they hired me and that may be one of the reasons they hired me. There are a multitude of Seattle organizations that help people living on the streets. These groups are not a solution to systemic problems within our society but they certainly are helping people.
Stating the obvious here: this world needs more kindness.
—Alex Mayer
Executive Director
nirvanawok@gmail.com
2024: Nirvana WOK’s Year in Review
Mutual Aid Can Be Anything
Nirvana WOK went through many changes last year.
The mission to make our Substack blog daily was successful, although we got off track a bit from the mutual aid focus and did some junk food reviews and other fun stuff. There will be fewer email missives in 2025 - once a week at most, including this monthly newsletter.
Nirvana WOK finally decided to proceed with pursuing nonprofit status. It’s a big process that takes time, money and a good tax accountant.
We accepted our first contribution in years - $200 from a Seattleite now living in Los Angeles.
The goal for 2025 is to start accepting donations so that we can sock away money for annual expenses. So far that’s been under $1,000 in 2024 but only because I have been volunteering my time and paying for our mutual aid missions out of pocket. We need a bigger food budget, for starters.
The population of Seattletites living on the streets has exploded in recent years. Now is the time to ramp up the Nirvana WOK project.
There are many mutual aid organizations and nonprofits doing great work in Seattle and we want to join them as a legit 501(c)(3) so that future supporters can deduct donations from their taxes and so we can apply for grants.
—Shelia Jolley
Board Vice President
Nonprofit of the Month:
Seattle Roots Community Health
The Country Doctor Community Clinic — a health care provider started by the Black Panthers in the late 1960s — has rebranded as Seattle Roots Community Health. Seattle Roots runs the Country Doctor on Capitol Hill and the Carolyn Downs Family Medical Center in the Central District which is the last remaining Black Panther clinic.
“The clinic is named after fallen Black Panther comrade Carolyn Downs – a young activist and mother who cared tirelessly for her community.”
I have been lucky enough to have been a patient at the Country Doctor for decades. In my younger days they had no problem seeing me when I was uninsured or low on cash. I had the same doctor for 20 years - unheard of in America, or so I’m told. I’m on my third Country Doctor doctor now and she’s awesome.
The Country Doctor/Community Roots pharmacy provides a much better experience than one would find at the back of a supermarket or at a corporate place.
Community roots takes in every patient, regardless of ability to pay. They have a dental clinic now too.
Americans are not happy with their health care system right now, but if people are angry with actual providers that anger is misplaced. The doctors don’t like the insurance companies any more than we do.
In a better world we would have a Medicare for All system.
—Aaron Rensselaer
From the Archives
Italian Meatballs for 100
The Nickelsville Night Out pasta party was a success with over 40 meals sold and over 25 meals given to volunteers and residents. There were enough leftovers for a meatball sub lunch the next day. Over $2,000 was raised after accounting for matching funds from an anonymous donor.
The Nirvana WOK concept is designed to be autonomous so that we could drop in to, say, a disaster area and set up a portable outdoor propane kitchen in a matter of minutes, and I was fully prepared to show up at Nickelsville and set up with no facilities. Luckily they let me use their kitchen which has a sink, two refrigerators, an electric stove and other features and that worked out great.
20 lbs ground beef & 10 eggs
2 heads parsley & 2 heads garlic
3 cups panko (soaked in milk)
3 cups bread crumbs (soaked in milk)
Salt, red pepper, black pepper
Prep and combine ingredients, roll out your balls and cook at 350 on foil-lined pans until browned on the outside and 160 degrees inside.
The temperature was in the low 90s that day which made us grateful for the outdoor kitchen, even though there was no breeze.
August 5, 2021
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