Three ways to participate:

Give directly & Venmo: @SmittenKittenMN

Pay a little more for your ticket

Festival tickets are sliding scale $18–$80. 10% of every ticket sold (after fees) will go directly to the mutual aid fund. If you are able to pay just a little bit more, your ticket helps extend that support further. If the festival surpasses its ticket sales goals, additional proceeds will also be contributed.

Enter the raffle

Each week of the festival, we’re running a raffle with proceeds going directly to the fund. Come to the festival and enter our raffle for Mutual Aid!

[raffle info coming SOON!]

This year, Red Eye is partnering with SMITTEN KITTEN’S MUTAL AID FUND for the full run of the festival.

Mutual aid is a gift from Black and queer communities to all of us — built by people who cared for each other’s aliveness because governments, states, and institutions excluded or failed them. Ballroom culture created house systems that provided shelter, mentorship, and material support for Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ people. During the AIDS crisis, queer networks became survival infrastructure. And the mutual aid activated in Minneapolis in response to ICE enforcement this year traces directly to longstanding community practices — from AIM (American Indian Movement) to the uprisings following George Floyd’s murder.

It is important to name the lineage we all benefit from. Communities and ecosystems are dangerous to fascism.

“Smitten Kitten’s mutual aid fund is a lifeline for folks and is uniquely accessible — cash in gets distributed immediately, usually within hours.”

— JP, Smitten Kitten

Smitten Kitten’s fund is rapid-response, low-barrier, no-application cash assistance for people on the margins targeted by state violence and systemic oppression. Funds move person-to-person with no overhead.

As of this writing, there is a $26K backlog of urgent requests. People in our communities are still being impacted by ICE enforcement and economic precarity. The need is immediate.

As a small artist-run nonprofit navigating reduced arts funding and lower ticket revenue across the field, we wanted to build a partnership that could offer sustained material support while remaining financially sustainable for the artists and workers who make this festival possible.

More about Smitten Kitten: www.smittenkittenonline.com

Instagram Follow Smitten Kitten: @smittenkittenmn

Instagram Follow Red Eye: @red_eye_theater