Born in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, GNO Caring Collective once supported over 1,000 Greater New Orleans families with weekly grocery deliveries, check-ins, rides to appointments, and more. As resources shifted, we focused on long-term community care until Hurricane Ida in 2021 reignited large-scale relief efforts across Louisiana’s river parishes and coast. That momentum carried through two tornado disasters in Arabi within a single year, cementing our resolve to remain both a steady resource and a ready disaster-response hub.

That resolve led us to the Fred Hampton Free Store, located at 5523 St. Claude in the Lower 9th Ward. The building’s owner donates the space; we cover utilities and keep it open as a community hub—part free thrift store, part skate rink, part venue, part gathering place. Hundreds visit weekly for clothing, medicine, music, or to skate.

Here, people can see why we do what we do: because radical spaces matter, spaces where uncertainty is met with solidarity. Named for Chairman Fred Hampton, Sr., the Free Store stands as a living reminder that human empathy, organized and fearless, can overcome fascism.