Each Wednesday evening, upwards of 100 people line up on a sidewalk adjoining Tucson’s Armory Park for a hot meal served in heaping portions from steaming containers lined up on a folding table.
It’s a bounty of food offered to an unhoused community that is often food insecure — and each week the food for Community Care Tucson’s weekly distribution is prepared in a small handful of home kitchens. In early July, amid the dog days of summer, one of those is the home kitchen of Ash Fortune, a longtime volunteer and career kitchen worker who has perfected the art of cooking batch meals to appeal to a broad range of diners.
“It feels important to give back, to be aware of how lucky and privileged I am to not be worried about my next meal,” says Fortune, who has cooked for the distribution nearly every week for the past two years.
It’s a glimpse into one part of the labor behind Tucson’s mutual aid network, through which a handful of different groups provide food, clothing and sometimes medical care in different areas around the city…