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Volunteer Thadeaus Umpster with the anarchist collective In Our Hearts delivering donated produce to community fridges in the Bed Stuy section of Brooklyn.
Volunteer Thadeaus Umpster with the anarchist collective In Our Hearts delivering donated produce to community fridges in the Bed Stuy section of Brooklyn.
IOHNYC
Marina Vergara has been involved in distributing food to Los Angeles' large homeless population for years through her work with a nonprofit that supports the chronically unhoused.
But this spring, she heard about something new. Free food refrigerators, or "freedges," were springing up all over New York as the deadly pandemic fueled a striking rise in wider food insecurity and hunger. Vergara reached out to the members of the collective who were setting up them up.
"They connected me with a few different people in L.A. who were thinking about doing this," she says. They all agreed, "Let's try it!"
Within a few days, Vergara and her accomplices had a location, a used refrigerator and food donations.
"It was really incredible, we only had one fridge and it was just overflowing with donations, both, you know, fresh and pantry items," she says.
Today, volunteers LA Community Fridges have helped set up at least a dozen across the L.A. area that are helping hundreds of hungry Angelenos get through the week. They're stocked with fresh basics like milk and eggs, veggies and fruit, as well as canned foods.
The ad-hoc, volunteer-led effort has quickly spread — Nashville, Boston and Oakland among others have them, too. On many of the freedges, the honor system rules are posted in bright colors: take what you need, leave what you don't.
So far, local health departments and inspectors have, with a few exceptions, largely looked the other way. Ernst Oehninger, an economist and community organizer, helped get some of the first Freedges off the ground in the Davis, Calif., area. He says in the past the fear of legal liability or a code infraction often proved major deterrents for aspiring freedge organizers. He's heartened this pandemic-fueled movement doesn't seem burdened by that.
"The majority of the freedges popping up now don't seem to have these concerns," Oehninger says. "We think this is great, as food codes are not made for community fridges and everything we do is only possible because of loopholes. We think people should start their community fridge then deal with health authorities later, if there is a complaint."
For Vergara, the speed and growing support for this grassroots movement offers her a glimmer of optimism in an otherwise dark year.
"It's incredible how fast this is all happened. I mean, I can't even explain how much hope this gives me," she says. "You know it's really nice to know that we're here for one another."
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A free food refrigerator in New York City organized by volunteers with the volunteer collective A New World In Our Hearts.
A free food refrigerator in New York City organized by volunteers with the volunteer collective A New World In Our Hearts.
/IOHNYC
Filling a need
The number of Americans struggling to get enough to eat has grown dramatically during the pandemic. Food banks are struggling to keep up with a surging 60% increase in demand, according to the nation's largest network of member food banks Feeding America. Also telling, more than 40 percent of those people are seeking food aid for the very first time, according to the group's August survey.
