Hello, my name is Ted Fields. I am a social work student at MSU. I have experience in substance abuse treatment in the Mount Pleasant area. I am relatively new to the Lansing area, but I’m getting to know the people, organizations, and services here. If you need help or someone to talk to, I am at the Fledge on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 8:30 AM to 1:30 PM.

Since starting with the Fledge, I’ve been blown away. I’ve wanted to tell people in my life about the Fledge, but I’ve struggled to provide a succinct but accurate description of what the hell the Fledge is. So, I decided to try to put together such a description. As everyone knows, it would take a book to comprehensively describe the Fledge. So, I’ve tried to distill it all into a statement of purpose and values. Even this is incomplete, and I’m interested to hear what people think is missing, inaccurate, or incomplete.

Here it is:

The Fledge is a radically-inclusive and anti-oppressive mutual aid organization that works to increase quality of life and reduce harms done to individuals by society. We accomplish this by providing resources and support in areas of need including food, clothing, housing, technology, transportation, healthcare, entrepreneurship, and compassion. We serve as an incubator and supportive platform for entrepreneurs, artists, activists, and more, focusing especially on underserved and marginalized individuals. The Fledge is housed in a de-sanctified and repurposed church in Lansing. It is non-hierarchical in structure and operates on a basis of values, not rules.

We believe that the dominant systems have been intentionally designed to exploit people and resources, and we believe that the power to destroy these systems and replace them with egalitarian systems that elevate and care for all is and should be in the hands of the people. 

We believe in the inherent value and autonomy of all people, and we believe that differences should be celebrated, not tolerated.

We believe in individual freedom, community responsibility, harm reduction, and the principles of mutual aid.

We could list all of our positions individually, but the foundational principle of our beliefs is that if someone is being oppressed, exploited, or mistreated, we are on their side. 

We believe in art, music, laughter, and joy, and we believe that it’s more fun to be in the revolution than out of it.