Distro Disco volunteers assemble 400 cooling kits as B.C. faces record heat summer

On a Monday evening in late June, around 20 volunteers gathered outside the Vancouver Tool Library on East Vancouver's Commercial Street to pack reusable water bottles, sunscreen, spray bottles, cooling towels and other supplies into over 400 cooling kits for vulnerable residents.

The initiative came from Distro Disco, a grassroots mutual-aid network that has been collecting and distributing life-saving supplies via minibus to at-risk Vancouver residents since 2021. The group operates on principles of mutual aid, in which community members voluntarily organize to pool resources and care for one another — often filling gaps governments have left behind.

Distro Disco, run by 20 to 40 regular volunteers at any given time, hands out basic necessities — toiletries, medical supplies, electrical items and more — three times a month at pre-set locations, often in parks near the Downtown Eastside.

The cooling-kits project emerged because the City of Vancouver's own cooling-kits program was discontinued in April. The city had initiated it in 2022 in response to the 2021 heat dome, which killed 619 B.C. residents from heat-related causes. The original city kits included spray bottles, cooling towels, reusable water bottles and hats, handed out to at-risk residents through service providers.

Zoe Diomis, a volunteer who joined Distro in 2021 when she was emerging from pandemic isolation, said she felt compelled to participate more meaningfully in her community. "I feel like I've seen the physical and social landscape of the city change over the last 30 years, and in many ways it has not been a super positive change," Diomis said. "It really hurts to see the way that the city treats unhoused people."

In early June, Distro Disco announced on Instagram that they were fundraising and collecting supplies to create cooling kits. A June 1 post read, "The city has discontinued the cooling kits program, so we are taking this on…and doing it better." Follow-up posts said they were trying to raise $2,000 by month's end to make 400 kits. "We know that cooling kits save lives, and there's absolutely a need for them," Diomis said.

Environment and Climate Change Canada projects this summer to be one of the hottest on record.