Who We Are

Apiary for Practical Support is a national hub for groups that provide logistical assistance to people seeking abortions. 

Apiary provides operations and programmatic technical assistance to those groups to ensure that they have the tools and resources they need to continue supporting their clients. Through our unique programs and projects, we aim to help strengthen the fabric of practical support, making abortion more accessible to all.

Read about our programs here.

Our Purpose

Apiary was created out of a need to make space for practical support organizations (PSOs) to collaborate amidst the abortion-access crisis. This need became even more evident once abortion was no longer constitutionally protected.

We exist to co-conspire with movement workers by democratizing information, tools, and resources, and facilitating community spaces. We bridge the gaps that exist between PSOs and other essential movement structures like healthcare providers, abortion funds, and other partners. 

The crises we’re facing now are not only due to anti-abortion policies: they are also the result of the cascading effects of racist policies that increase inequity and then erode social safety nets. Anti-abortion legislation like the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Texas’ SB8, and the ongoing efforts to restrict bodily autonomy has made traveling for healthcare essential. Even in non-restrictive states, inaccessibility exists with most people in the United States. Living in areas without healthcare providers, dwindling social service programs, stagnant minimum wages, lack of rural infrastructure, and vulnerability to climate change make meeting basic needs incredibly difficult for most people, particularly those who are poor, Black and brown.

Practical support (logistical assistance including transportation, lodging, childcare, and more) has long been a cornerstone of abortion access and, especially in recent years, has become an essential part of making healthcare accessible. Many PSOs are small grassroots groups, working with limited resources and complex demands with criminalization ever looming. 

We are deeply, unequivocally pro-abortion.

Our History

  • We were founded by two leaders of practical support organizations, Odile Schalit and Diana Parker-Kafka, and a nonprofit management expert, Marisa Falcon. Marisa went on to become the Executive Director while Odile and Diana remain Advisors and Board members.

    In 2021 we were also joined by Tessa Benson, who became Apiary co-builder with Marisa and whose work and vision remains core to the organization’s identity even after her 2023 departure.

  • The co-founders first started working together in February 2020—and then their first project became helping practical support organizations keep track of all of the shifting services as the pandemic roiled through the country.

    In July 2021, we formally launched, known as Apiary Collective, under the Midwest Access Coalition’s fiscal sponsorship. By the end of the year we became our own independent nonprofit with the new name, Apiary for Practical Support.

  • Back in 2020, there was no space explicitly for the needs and nuances of practical support organizations but the number of groups doing the work were growing rapidly. The co-founders first came together to create an organization that spoke to the demands of the work of helping with travel logistics and to create a place for new groups to come in with an understanding of the vast ecosystem that already exists.

What’s with the name?

An apiary is a group of beehives—a collective in which each individual pools their labor to make an intricate, efficient, complex, and beautiful support system. A hive cannot thrive unless every worker bee contributes and collaborates. Neither can we.

Are you a reproductive justice organization?

Because we are focused primarily on practical support, we are not a reproductive justice organization. However, it is one of our core values and we actively work to fold their principles into the full spectrum of our work.