Thoughts on Clothing and Food for our Communities

Haui and I were talking about frustrations we have each encountered with mutual aid elsewhere. Two things that we discussed, the need for clothing/repairs. I said I know someone with a very nice sewing machine sitting unused in their attic. Despite them not using it, they have refused when I asked about borrowing it, several times, in order to teach myself to sew and offer repairs to neighbors who badly need clothes mended.

Haui mentioned office workers not volunteering at their center, possibly because they don't think they have anything to offer. In my community, some do help out the one day a month my community passes out food, usually preparing boxes or putting them in cars. Their office skills are not utilized, but office workers in my area tend to be very territorial, almost like they are afraid they will be replaced or found doing something wrong, although I would guess the former. In my opinion, even though we may not need any help with paperwork right now, it would be a good idea to have some one or two others trained, because people get sick or move away unplanned.

I'm in a very rural, very underserved very Southern US community, so saying anything about socialism is going to immediately turn off people to anything.

I guess I have three questions for the community:

How can we go about getting food (excess root vegetables and cabbages, usually) donations from the one local independent grocer who is probably suffering themselves from lack of SNAP benefits?

What is the best way to ask that we train up back up for paperwork?

How can we get someone to donate an operable sewing machine?

Here is the original conversation: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/9724808/7287419