Texas Is Still Powerless, Heatless, Waterless. But a Growing Group of Chefs Are Freely Distributing Food and Cash.

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The situation in Texas is so grim—millions without power, heat, water, food—that any act of community support needs amplifying and multiplying. Against the storm’s backdrop are volunteer efforts by chef José Andrés, whose World Central Kitchen has partnered with local eateries to freely feed people affected by outages. His nonprofit has distributed 2,000 meals to residents of senior living homes without power. And it’s not enough.

As we continue to learn what’s disastrously wrong at the level of emergency management and systems of accountability (much of it well-aired), mobilization continues, including in this related story of giveaways by Boombox Taco Truck. The truck is feeding nearly 1,000 families. Truck owners had no power themselves for days before opening to hand out 2,400 tacos at eight apartment complexes. Learn more about Boombox. Or about restaurant owner Max Bozeman II of Greasy Spoon Soulfood Bistro, who’s giving away $10,000 to families needing food and shelter all while battling medical challenges of his own. Follow his giveaways on Instagram.

If you live in storm-battered states or have friends and family who do—and there’s good news—reach us at recharge@motherjones.com.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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