Our Story

Olive Grove Initiative (OGI) was formed in March 2024 in response to the urgent need to evacuate a friend’s family from the Gaza Strip. This first effort marked the beginning of what would become a growing, volunteer-run mutual aid collective. Today, our work continues with a clear mission—to materially support Palestinian families in Gaza facing displacement, siege, and unimaginable hardship.

Since October 2023, the Gaza Strip has endured an intensified campaign of bombardment, blockade, and forced displacement at an unprecedented scale. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, hospitals and schools destroyed, and over a million people have been forcibly displaced with no safe place to go. Basic necessities like food, water, medicine, electricity, and internet access are scarce or completely cut off. International aid is limited, inconsistent, and often politicized. Palestinians in Gaza are being systematically isolated and starved under the watch of our global community. 

We are not a nonprofit or an NGO. We are a grassroots group responding to this crisis with urgency, trust, and care. We raise and distribute funds as quickly as possible to families who are still inside the Strip. 

Currently, we are in direct, ongoing contact with four families in Gaza. These relationships are central to our work. They are not symbolic—these are people we speak to regularly, whose lives we follow and support in real time. Their needs are specific and constantly shifting: food, clean water, tents, baby formula, cash for relocation, medicine, access to a working phone or power bank. Our fundraising is tailored to meet those needs directly and without delay.

We generate funds by hosting events or attending them as vendors, selling Olive Grove Initiative merchandise as a way to raise money and share our message. You may have seen us at protests, art fairs, or community spaces across New York City. We’re best known for our pro-Palestinian lighters, but we offer a range of handmade and printed goods that reflect our values of creative resistance and collective care.

We are 100% volunteer-run. That means every dollar raised goes directly to the families we support. There are no salaries, no overhead, no bureaucracy—just a very small group of people doing what we can to respond to an unbearable reality.

We invite you to explore this site to learn more about the families we support, how we operate, and the urgent need for ongoing solidarity. This work is not about charity—it’s about survival, autonomy, and mutual aid rooted in trust.

If you're interested in supporting, collaborating, or learning more, DM us on Instagram @olivegroveinitiative.

Thank you for standing with us—and with Gaza