Hop in, gatherers. We're doing a relay across the entire country!

And it would be really cool if you and your neighbors could be a part of it

You know what’s usually a bummer? When somebody announces that they’re “launching” a new initiative. I suppose there are still some good launches out there (new books, for example), but more often than not a “launch” means that a company has figured out a new way to sell us something we definitely don’t need. Probably AI. Or an app. Or an AI app. In either case, you’ll end up with another password to remember and a town in the Central Time Zone will see all of its municipal power supply drained for a new data center.

So no, this isn’t that kind of launch. I’m not selling anything. I’m actually giving money away (not a lot, but keep reading). And I’m not running for office either, which means that this also isn’t the kind of launch that will result in you getting five million text messages that say “[INSERT NAME], IT’S NANCY PELOSI. WE HAVE A PROBLEM.”

Actually, come to think of it, this isn’t any sort of launch. It’s more like an invitation. Or, better put, it’s me helping you make an invitation.

Over the course of the next year, myself and my Barnraisers co-worker Carly are going to host fifty gatherings in fifty states.¹ That’s a lot of gatherings.

Now, Carly and I won’t be at the majority of them, but we’re not the point. It’s a relay, except instead of a baton, we’ll be passing around a big wooden box with fifty compartments. The box is being made as we speak, by carpenters who know way more about how to make a shippable box full of a nation’s worth of compartments than I ever will. That’s right, I now know smart box people. What a life.

The gatherings can spend their time in whatever way feels right for each group (a party, a potluck, an organizing meeting, a neighborhood clean-up, a space for mourning, a dodgeball tournament). At each stop, participants will talk about what commitments they want to make—both to each other and to a whole nation of caring neighbors. They’ll write down a few of those commitments and then choose some artifact or gift from their home before sending the box on to its next destination. Often, the box will travel by mail, but we hope that occasionally it’ll be hand delivered from one gathering to the next. In either case, the web gets woven.

We’re going to start in Alaska and Hawaii (next month, we hope!) and finish, roughly a year later, likely in Maine. When the box is filled, we’ll have a party. We haven’t planned that party yet, because right now it’s just Carly and me and a website and a google doc, but a year from now we’ll have pulled together a diasporic community of gatherers, and there are at least a few aspects of this project that we want to discover together, somewhere down the road.

Ideally, all sorts of groups will raise their hands. It’d be pretty amazing if some of the gatherings were in middle school social studies classrooms, others in churches, mosques and synagogues, a handful in union halls, and more than a few in crammed living rooms or front porches. If you’re intrigued but you doubt that you could be a host, I say this with love, but I bet you’re wrong. You can do it! Established groups. New groups. Groups that never knew that they were groups (because they just called themselves friends or neighbors). Let’s go.

We don’t need or expect every gathering to single-handedly change the world. We just want to show each other and the country that there truly is something special brewing—a national turn towards each other and away from hate, alienation, and all the systems that have worn us down. We’re calling it the Declarations of Interdependence Relay (but you can just call it the Relay if you hate syllables).

Yes, that name is a direct nod to a different Declaration that has its 250^th birthday this year. You could say that we’re throwing fifty birthday parties, but not for jingoism or ahistorical nationalism. Definitely not for this regime. We’re celebrating the fact that the best part of this complicated place has always been the agitators, dreamers and most of all the community caregivers.

To put it mildly, there are a one hell of a lot of American stories that don’t fill me with pride. But the ones that do— the Underground Railroad; the Unemployed Workers Movement during the Great Depression; the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program; Bread and Roses and the Combahee River Collective— have all shared two common bonds. They dreamed of a better country and world for all of us, but they took care of people locally. They fed each other. They tended space together. They listened. They loved.

That’s all we’re trying to do. Feeding, tending and loving… and also connecting.

We are in a tenuous, frightening, possibility-filled moment. Oh man, are we ever. There’s much to bemoan, but also: For the first time I can remember, those of us who long for justice are finding inspiration, not in saviors or charismatic leaders, but in anonymous neighbors putting love and justice into action. That’s why Minnesotans lit our hearts on fire this past month. We are hungry for connection and agency, and are discovering, in real-time, the transcendent alchemy of focusing on both at once.

I love our energy, this nascent movement of community-curious dreamers. But I’m also pretty darned nervous. I’m worried that we have more experience being reactive than proactive— we can mobilize when ICE is in town, but not on an average Tuesday. I worry that we’ll fall into familiar traps, like putting all our energy behind short-term fire drills and none of it in building sustainable projects close to home. I worry about attention and algorithms. I worry that while some of us have well-developed muscles for care, hosting, and bringing people together, others (myself included) have been so addicted to the lie of rugged individualism that the turn towards collective care feels like walking on wobbly deer legs.

We started this project for this specific moment. Sure, the 250th anniversary, but it’s more than just that. We are here together, in 2026. Anxious about what might come— for our country, for our world— but wanting to trust and build with our neighbors. Many days, the small and local won’t feel like enough, even though it’s the most important place we can direct our energy.

I hope that this relay will make your local gathering feel less alone. I hope that we legitimately learn something by hearing 50 different verses of the same chorus. We don’t need to wait for the disaster. We can be neighbors now. We are being neighbors now.

I bet you have a million questions.

Yes, we are going to be doing all sorts of things to support hosts— both through coaching, connection and modest stipends ($250, not all the money in the world, I know, but enough to help with snacks-).

Yes, we have spent a ton of time stressing over the logistics of how to schedule gatherings and move a box from place to place.

Yes, we have a decent plan but we’ll probably muck it up.

No, your gathering doesn’t HAVE to be a potluck… but potlucks do, in fact, rule.

I could keep going, but I’ve answered a bunch of those questions on our website, and even more in our participant handbook.

If all that sounds intriguing to you, here are the next steps:

1. You take some time to at least skim that handbook.

2. If you’re into this but don’t have time to apply yet, fill out the interest form (separate from the Barnraisers interest form).

3. But if you are in fact, ready to apply, you do so here (a longer process than the interest form, but not too onerous, we promise)

4. You can also send me an email with thoughts and questions or whatever. My email is my first name (Garrett) at barnraisersproject.org

5. I’ve said this already, but it bears repeating: Just about anything can be a gathering, not just large, community groups. Are you a classroom teacher? A lay leader at a church? Somebody who has not gathered before but is looking for an excuse to invite a handful of people to your house? We want you as well.

Seriously, you all. It would be so cool to do this with you. Also, I do need your help in a few different ways:

1. Our most urgent need, in the short term, is to find great hosts in our first two states (Alaska and Hawaii). As mentioned above, ideally we’d love to launch in April, but that hinges on help in those places. A bonus (perhaps?) for those gatherings: To help kick things off well, I’m likely going to attend both of these events in person, before delivering the box to the continental U.S. (Washington State— this may mean that I’ll be able to do an in-person event with you all as well). That’s all to say: Alaska! Hawaii! Or people who know cool gatherers in either state— please get in touch. I’d love to talk.

2. We do have a grant for this project, but this is also a massive undertaking, and so if you are in a position to help out financially, either a donation to Barnraisers or upgrading to a paid subscription here will help a ton. We think this project is going to tell a really powerful story, both in fifty individual places and across the country. That’s totally optional, though. Like I said up top: nothing for sale here.

3. I don’t often say “hey, share this piece far and wide” but I really would love to get the word out on this project. Could you help spread the word? I appreciate it.

Most of all, thank you. You all have helped me believe that there is a whole world full of people who are realizing that there will be no survival, and definitely no liberation, without a radical turning towards each other. This was a pretty wild idea, and it scared the dickens out of get to this point, where I’m telling the world about it. But what do we believe? That it’s better to walk into fear together than alone.

Appreciate you all. Now let’s throw fifty great parties.

jointherelay.org

1. I bet you’re wondering about D.C. and the U.S. territories. Those are great questions. It’s fun to say fifty gatherings, but that’s more of a floor than a ceiling. We’re definitely coming to D.C. (just deciding whether we do so during our Mid-Atlantic swoop or as our final celebration). As for the territories, transparently we’re figuring it out. We’d love to get to all five, but right now we have the resources to do the states.

Needless to say, the Interdependence Relay loves sharing a country with everybody in D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands. We also believe strongly in D.C. statehood and sovereignty for all territories to decide a path to independence/statehood or whatever is right for them. Thanks for your patience with our scrappiness and “figuring it out as we go”-ness.