LOGAN SQUARE — Neighbors who helped migrants at the Logan Square police station have pivoted to open a free store.
El Árbol, a mutual aid group born out of the Police Station Response Team of volunteers, now has a free store inside a church basement near the Shakespeare (14th) district station near California and Milwaukee avenues. Neighbors and migrants in need can access winter gear, personal hygiene kits, school supplies and more.
The store opened Wednesday with about 25 people coming by to take advantage of the free items, said Daniel Orkin, a lead volunteer and El Árbol organizer.
While it’s mostly geared for migrants, the store is open to anyone in the neighborhood who needs free winter items or personal items, Orkin said.
Interested shoppers can reach out to the mutual aid group on Instagram for the exact address, as the group doesn’t want to attract too much attention to the residential area, Orkin said. People can also email 14thdistrictnetwork@gmail.com.
“We got a ton of donations [and] a lot of really good stuff, and the key is to keep it organized and stocked with things that we need,” Orkin said.
The store is open Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings, and volunteers hope it can serve at least 30 families each day, Orkin said. Exact times will be shared to the group’s social media.
The church used to be the group’s space for collecting donations. When migrants were moved out of police stations at the end of the 2023, volunteers pivoted to a free store, much like other mutual aid groups in the area have done.
The store is inside a church basement near the police station and is always looking for volunteers to staff it during open hours. People can sign up online to reserve a spot.
The store’s details and guidelines are still being worked out, but organizers hope to continue to grow to formalize their outreach network and streamline ways to help migrants. The group plans to coordinate with churches also assisting migrants and work with The Parlor, a free donation and distribution center built out of another Logan Square mutual aid collective.
“Let’s try to do what we can in the short term, and as things come up, we can develop more processes,” Orkin said. “There could be a future where we’re transporting people from some of the neighborhood shelters at different times to restock.”
Store leaders also hope it can be a place to help migrant families who have found permanent housing get essentials like bedsheets, kitchenware and more, Orkin said.
“With the birth of this new free store, what’s nice about it is that it feels very proactive as opposed to the situation at the police station, which was very reactive,” Orkin said.
The Humboldt Park Solidarity Network, another mutual aid group, operates a free store called Casa Hernandez, 3519 W. North Ave. The network collects donations through its Open Collective page to support the structure of Casa Hernandez and nearby aid models.
Donations to the network get disbursed to El Árbol, The Parlor, the Logan Square mutual aid group and others doing similar work in the community, said Nick Hernandez, Humboldt Park Solidarity Network lead volunteer. The money goes toward rent for some stores, infrastructure needs, shopping bags and other supplies.
The group is also accepting donations exclusively for El Árbol.
“If people are giving of their money during these tough times, we want to make sure if they ever ask about the situation, they can find all of the information on the open collective,” Hernandez said.
El Árbol’s free store is a way for volunteers and neighbors still wanting to help the new arrivals do their part and not feel burned out, Orkin said.
“The way I try to look at [volunteering] now is more about building community infrastructure and resilience … and how do we work better with other groups also doing this,” he said. “While we’re really trying to learn from them, I don’t think it’s a situation where there’s a limit to the amount of people who we can support. It’s definitely a rising tide lifts all ships kind of thing.”
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