Marylu E. Herrera

Helping Handles: Tote Bags 4 Refugee Fundraiser is a series of tote bags made by Chicago artists to raise funds to get activated cell phones for asylum seekers arriving in Chicago. 

Tote bags go for $28 - or you can donate your old phone in exchange for a tote bag of your choice! 

Inspired by arts community mobilization efforts like the Bootlegs 4 Brandon project, Buddy has assembled 14 amazing artists to donate their artwork, which we’ve printed on bags that we’re releasing Aug 25. meet the urgent needs of assylum seekers involuntarily bussed to our city. Help us help our new neighbors get oriented, communicate with family and friends, and thrive with us in our welcoming communities.

Public Media Institute is working to get these newly-arriving refugees working phones with SIM cards. This is something our mutual aid buddies across the city have unanimously let us know there is urgent need for; other nonprofits and community groups are working to get asylum seekers’ basic needs met, but no one is helping people get the phones essential to find work, communicate with loved ones, and navigate complicated government aid.

In June, PMI acquired 100 SIM cards, but have only been able to activate 30 of them so far. We are raising funds to activate more phones at the cost of about $40 per phone.  More information about our campaign to collect funds for phones and old phone donations is here.  

Marylu E. Herrera (she/her) is a Chicago-based Chicana collage, printmedia, craft, and fiber artist who uses the home as a political and personal site where celebration is a form of existence and resistance.

Herrera earned her BFA in Studio Art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston at Tufts University and her MFA in Printmedia from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently works as the Communication and Design Coordinator at LATITUDE Chicago.

Herrera’s work has been exhibited at the Chicago Art Department, Comfort Station, RUSCHWOMAN, Woman Made Gallery, SITE Galleries, Hyde Park Art Center, and Tish & Koppelman Galleries. Her Artist Book, Me Voy, is a part of the Artist Book Special Collections of SMFA & Tufts Library Archive in Boston. She is currently a Chicago Art Department Resident and a part of The Center Program at Hydepark Art Center. Most recently, Herrera has been awarded the Chicago DECASE 2023 Individual Artists Program Grant.

Her collage work has been featured in New York Magazine (The Cut), Los Angeles Times, Bitch Media, and Eater.com.