4/23/2021 Foundry Giving Friday: 612 M*A*S*H

• Posted on 19 April 2021
• Posted in Foundry Giving Friday
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Every Friday The Foundry Home Goods donates 5% of our total sales to a different community-nominated small-and-mighty cause. This Friday's Foundry Giving Friday recipient? 612 M*A*S*H

Last week, after talking to our dear friend G.E., we wrote about the transformative power of care. Care is the most essential human gift. It is our shared capacity to nurture and nourish, to heal and help, and—especially—to protect and serve each other that builds the mutual bonds of our precious human community. This week we are a city besieged. By the time Friday arrives we can only hope that that some sort of justice will be served. Until then (and/or ever after), it is in keeping with our essential human duty to continue to support care—to manifest it ourselves, to be vocal when we don't see it, and to support it whenever we do.

Our Giving Friday recipient this week is 612 M*A*S*H, a group of local medics working to bridge the gaps between underserved communities and critical resources in order to promote healing through aligning services, providing education, and deploying accessible care.

The community-run, volunteer-powered mobile health center based at 38th and Chicago began when founder Kia Bible saw the need for community-based care for injured protesters. 612 M*A*S*H started as an ad hoc trauma-care center (and trauma there was—and is—in spades) but the scope of care has expanded exponentially. They now provide no or low cost follow-up care, general care, and mental health services, and are working towards opening a free-standing full-service healthcare clinic. A whole community in need, nourished by care.

As to their name, Bible says: "It started with just a bus. And then the next day, somebody donated a tent. Literally within like three days, we were treating full-blown trauma in and on the middle of the street. And so we also often joke like we're working out of a MASH [Mobile Army Surgical Hospital] unit down here, right here in the middle of 612 Minneapolis — "Oh, 612 MASH!". 

Let us also note: the exact same tear gas actively being deployed on citizens lawfully exercising their first amendment rights was banned for use in warfare in 1925 by the Geneva Convention.

Despite the obvious terrible parallels between the care required here in our town and that of wartime medical unit, the 612 M*A*S*H crew has subverted the concept with unparalleled generosity and grace, repurposing the very acronym to fit the vision of hope they are building on a foundation of care. Instead of "Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" this MASH unit now stands for "Minneapolis All Shall Heal".

We are pleased and proud to support this crucial work, this Giving Friday and always. If you don't need anything from us, consider donating to 612 M*A*S*H directly. They are specifically in the process of raising funds to staff a permanent outpost and, as is abundantly clear, we need care now more than ever.

If you DO find yourself in need of any sundries, know that your purchase goes to support care on the community level.

Thank you to G.E for his continued generosity of spirit and for telling us about this good work.

If YOU have a worthy cause to nominate for our Foundry Giving Friday initiative, pop on over to our Nomination Page and drop us a line. We're all in this together.