This cannot help you today, and we will not pretend it can.
No groups have joined Relay yet. If you sent a request right now, there would be nobody on the other end to receive it. We would rather tell you that on the first line than waste your time.
If you need help today, contact a local mutual aid group, a community organization, or a place of worship near you directly. In the United States you can also dial 211, a free phone line that points people to local help.
The rest of this page explains what Relay will do once local groups have joined, so you can decide later whether it is something you would use.
You ask. Only nearby groups can read it. Relay cannot.
The idea is simple. You write a message saying what you need and how someone can reach you. That message is locked on your own phone or computer before it is sent, and only the local groups working in your area are given a key. Relay stores it and cannot open it.
Pick roughly where you are and what kind of help you need, such as rent, food, or a utility bill. Write a short message. Include a phone number, an email, or any other way someone can reach you.
Your phone or computer locks the message before sending it. Nobody at Relay can read it, then or ever. There is no account to make and no password to remember.
You are shown a short word to remember or write down. That is the only thing you need to keep.
A local group opens the message, sees how to reach you, and gets in touch directly. They will say your safe word. That is how you know the call or message is really from someone who saw your request, and not from someone pretending.
The honest version, including the parts that are not perfect.
Local groups. Not a government office, and not a charity you apply to.
The groups on Relay are neighbors who put money together for each other: a block, a church, a school parents' group. They decide for themselves who they help. Relay does not review you, score you, or decide whether you qualify, and it never sees the money.
Nobody has used this yet.
The software is built and running, and no group has joined. The live database holds zero records. A group cannot appear in the public list until a fund hub approves it, so the first fund to take part is what makes both the list and the anonymous requests work at all. Saying so plainly is deliberate: a project asking to be trusted with other people's safety does not get to overstate itself.
Paused, then restarted
Work stopped in February 2026 after the last planned stage shipped, and started again in August 2026 to repair the deployment and clear the known problems.
One person built it
Everything described on these pages was written by one contributor. The engineering is the part that is finished. Nothing else is.
No money is being asked for
Mythic Works LLC is building Relay and intends to hand it to a nonprofit, which is not formed yet. There is no donation button and no fundraising.