Introduction

Crip Create is a weekly online co-working and socializing space centered on Disability Justice, created by and for Disabled people. It meets consistently on Wednesdays from 1:00–3:00 PM PDT and Saturdays from 4:00–6:00 PM PDT on Zoom. In 2025, Crip Create continued to function as a vital digital gathering space for Disabled individuals navigating chronic illness, COVID isolation, grief, anxiety, and everyday survival, by offering a body doubling and co-working space filled with Disability Community. As one participant shared, “This is the most consistent community I’ve had since the pandemic began.” This report highlights the key accomplishments, themes, and insights from Crip Create sessions held throughout 2025. The space was collaboratively organized by Calling Up Justice, The Curiosity Paradox, Catalyst Consulting, and Crip Create Rising.

Attendance and Engagement

Throughout 2025, Crip Create maintained strong and consistent participation, with 104 sessions regularly welcoming between 10 and 22 participants and some sessions running more than ten breakout rooms simultaneously. Across the year, Crip Create saw over 700 cumulative attendances, reflecting both steady return participation and the arrival of dozens of new community members. Many participants attended weekly or near-weekly, emphasizing how essential the space had become for them. As one participant noted, “This is the only way I get social contact some weeks.” Facilitation was shared across a rotating team of volunteer facilitators drawn from the community, reinforcing participant leadership and collective stewardship of the space.

Key Themes and Activities

Crip Create offered a flexible structure that allowed participants to engage in a variety of ways that worked best for them, based on access needs, energy levels, and capacity. For Crip Create, 2025 was a year of sustained community care, radical access, creative production, and deep emotional support. Every week CripCreate offered Co-working rooms (pomodoro/tomato timer, body doubling), Affinity & access-based rooms (BIPOC Affinity, Crip Rage, Quiet Space, Medical Admin), Creative rooms (art-making, whimsy, gaming, reading, storytelling, sparkles), Peer support and emotional processing, Resting & sensory-friendly spaces, Shared meals & cooking hacks, Disability Justice political education, Casual conversation, & emergent play.

Co-working and Productivity
Participants used Crip Create for writing, editing, grant applications, designing websites, organizing events, filling out medical and benefits paperwork, cleaning, cooking, organizing, homework, and professional preparation. Many named the space as critical for accomplishing tasks that felt otherwise impossible to do alone. One participant shared, “I was able to do something I’d been avoiding for weeks,” while another reflected, “We did the impossible tasks together.”

Community Support and Emotional Regulation
Crip Create consistently functioned as a space for emotional processing, grief support, discussing access frictions, and providing nervous system regulation. Participants frequently arrived overwhelmed or anxious and left feeling steadier. Common reflections included, “I was anxious when I came and grounded when I left,” “I always feel better emotionally after Crip Create,” “I needed this today more than I knew,” and “I can be my full disabled self here.” For many, the space served as a mental health stabilizer during periods of crisis and isolation.

Skill Sharing and Learning
Peer-led learning emerged organically throughout the year. Participants shared knowledge around Disability Justice based emergency preparedness, accessible technology, medical navigation, organizing strategies, and created creative workflows. Participants also read plays, shared recipes, offered guided meditations, and discussed disability hacks. The collective nature of this type of learning reinforced the sense that Crip Create is a place where Disabled knowledge is valued and circulated. As one participant stated, “This space is practicing Disability Justice by existing consistently and sustainably.”

Artistic Exploration, Play, and Joy
Creative rooms supported writing, crafting, zine-making, 3D printing, digital art, storytelling, gaming, karaoke, and somatic movement. Alongside deep conversations, moments of laughter, play, and delight were frequent. Participants reflected on how joy functioned as a form of care, with one person sharing, “I feel more like a person again when I’m here.”

Acknowledgments

Crip Create’s continued success in 2025 was made possible through the shared labor and collaboration of Calling Up Justice, The Curiosity Paradox, Catalyst Consulting, and Crip Create Rising. We offer deep gratitude for the fundraising, administrative coordination, intake processes, text reminders, calendaring, and maintenance of digital tools that sustain this space. We also thank the volunteer facilitators who held rooms, shared leadership, and showed up week after week. Most of all, we thank the participants who made Crip Create what it is through their presence, care, honesty, and brilliance.

Conclusion

In 2025, Crip Create continued to serve as a digital living room, studio, community center, classroom, and mutual aid hub.  Open twice a week, 52 weeks a year, at a time when many COVID-safe and accessibility-centered virtual spaces have collapsed, Crip Create has remained in continuous activation since 2020. As one participant said at the end of the year, “I need this. And I appreciate it. This space is disability justice made real.” With growing recognition and resourcing emerging at the close of 2025, Crip Create is poised to deepen its sustainability and impact in the year ahead.