Our story It began in a foreign country in Western Europe. It was the summer of 2018. We made a move and later, another decision that would change our lives f o r e v e r. The city was Berlin. The year was 2017, in the … Read more...
Community fridge – new phenomena on the streets
During tiring times, communities have come together. Read below how the community fridge is helping to fill the gap while offering free food for people in need.
We appreciate food, hate food waste, and work every day to save food, share food, and enjoy food. As a society, we waste so much food every day – approximately 1/3 of the food will end up in the garbage bins. Since we love the environment and try to consume as little as possible, this is a really hot subject for us.
Though we have close connections with the European way of saving and sharing food – Foodsharing, the more common term in Northern America is community fridge, a new phenomenon that should be the norm in every community.
What is a community fridge aka freedge?
A Community Fridge is a refrigerator located in a public space. The fridges, sometimes called “freedges” are a type of mutual aid project. They help to share food within a community. Some Community Fridges also have an associated area for non-perishable food.
Source: wikipedia.org
So basically, it is a fridge in a public space, which gets filled by anybody and can be emptied by anybody (you what you need, leave what you don’t). The food is always free. There is always so much leftover food. These fridges offer a convenient way to store and share surplus food.
Sometimes, such fridges are accompanied by little pantries, which hold the space for food items, which do not need refrigeration. So in a way, community fridges are like little free stores offering a variety of food; except that you never know what you’ll get at the freedges!
Wow, that sounds fun – how can I start a freedge?
Luckily as with most wonderful things, you can educate yourself using the world wide web. Freedges are connected to a worldwide network offering information, support, and media for all community fridge related questions. Please find the link to the Freedge Network at the end of this article.
You may already have a fridge or two in your city, town, or neighbourhood. Now you just have to fill it with food or take food if there is a need. Leaving food in the fridges is not charity. Food is a basic human need. And if our governments fail us, then joining our forces for mutual aid is the only way to go.
The first and most important thing is that you need a small group of like-minded people who believe in saving food and sharing it with others. This is a good start if you can communicate with a small group and set your goals and tasks. Finding a location for the fridge is a very tiring process. Especially when reaching out to businesses and asking permission for the fridge at their storefront. If that doesn’t work out, try private locations. All you need is a spot for the fridge. The shed to protect it from weather, and electricity to keep it working.
When you have found a spot for your community fridge, then it is time to explore more about the options of how to fill the fridge on a regular basis. Visit your local bakery, café, and speak to the manager at your home grocery store and inquire about their surplus food. Most of the time it just goes to garbage or organic recycle bins, but instead, it should reach people. This is where we all can step in. Reach out and make a change.
No good deed goes unpunished
The idea to write this article came because of saddening news. As one of the first community fridges in Toronto was shut down by city officers at the end of November 2020. It was closed because in the city official’s opinion that it was abandoned therefore posed a threat to children, who may lock themselves inside of it…
Jalil Bokhari, founder and community organizer of Community Fridges Toronto shared a post about it on their Instagram feed. And it went viral – 5000 likes in a day! Obviously, one little fridge touched so many people. It offered food to hundreds and hundreds of people in its short four-month life-span. Luckily, the Toronto Community Fridge has four other fridges up and running. But they need desperately all the support they can get. Including filling with food, maintenance, and winterizing. Communities can together to help with all that.
CBC wrote an article about Toronto city’s shameless decision to close the fridge down. In there: “Bokhari said the city’s order is upsetting because the fridge was a source of “fresh, good looking food” for many people in Parkdale and food insecurity is an issue in the neighborhood. The city also failed to help provide a solution, he added.”
It is heartless that the government body, elected to support and help us, makes a decision to close a community initiative that helps them take care of its most vulnerable and forgotten citizens. This being said, it is more of a reason to start even more fridges everywhere! Share the food, spread the love, and keep our tummies full. All of us. Not just those with money to buy all they need and throw away long before the food touches their plates…
Conclusion
With winter is around the corner in the northern hemisphere, and as times are hard for many, it is the right time for people to come together to start community fridges and pantries all over the world. Find a group of like-minded people, a place for a fridge, and plan to build a protective shed around the fridge. When this is all done, the rest will follow. Your community will come together and the fridge will make many people sustained and happy.
Reference and links:
We are new Toronto Food Not Bombs volunteers
We were first introduced to Food Not Bombs in the summer of 2017 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Our Couchsurfing host and friend invited us to volunteer at a Sunday afternoon gathering organized by Food Not Bombs Sofia.
It took place in a spacious wooden bungalow, where we had the overwhelming pleasure of meeting friendly and interesting people. Many of these volunteers felt strongly about veganism, food-waste, and helping people in need. Some were activists, others were not. And yet, we were all shared the common goal of getting nutritious food on the table, as we prepped and cooked veggie/vegan food to serve the impoverished community.
Our new vegan friend, an athletic weight trainer on a mission to show the world that muscles and veganism go hand in hand, was thrilled to have us there and so were we! He explained that there’s an opportunity to attend and volunteer at this event every Sunday. He added that Sofia Food Not Bombs also provides clothes, shoes, and other supplies to those in need. It is also crucial that they rent out the house to others when not in use, for income to accomplish their aim to help more people in need.
Fast forward to 2020, just a few weeks ago, Food Not Bombs, re-entered our lives. This time, across the globe in a different global climate. This time, in the city of Toronto.
What is Food Not Bombs?
”Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer movement that recovers food that would otherwise be discarded, and shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities in 65 countries in protest to war, poverty, and destruction of the environment. ”We are not a charity but dedicated to taking nonviolent direct action. Our movement has no headquarters, positions of leadership and we use the process of consensus to make decisions. We also provide food and supplies to the survivors of natural disasters, and people participating in occupations, strikes, marches and other protests.” PLEASE MAKE A DONATION TODAY
The above text and image below are taken from FoodNotBombs.net
Food Not Bombs is a global movement
How we became Toronto Food Not Bombs volunteers
Through a whirlwind of bref interactions initiated by Kerly, we became fast volunteers. We ended up taking over the sandwich duty for Toronto Food Not Bombs.
Through our food saving work, we contacted the Toronto Food Not Bombs team, and one passionate volunteer arrived to pick up the donated food.
After a passionate conversation and crash course of the work that our contact at Toronto Food Not Bombs is involved with, he casually asked a million dollar question:
Paraphrasing here…
”Would you be interested in making the sandwiches, as the current volunteers are returning to work and will be unavailable in 2 weeks? ”
Truth be told, once this question hit the air, we simply could not get it off our minds, but we also knew that as vegans, it would be a ”creative challenge” as our contact worded it.
Making sandwiches (as simple as it sounds) for the hungry is after all in alignment with our mission at Vegan Very Much.
Our Mission at Vegan Very Much
C r e a t e
As humans, we are creators who are capable of bringing brilliant ideas to life.
Co m p a s s i o n
Veganism is compassionate for both animals (especially factory farm animals), as well as the environment. This extends to showing compassion toward one another, as in treat others as you would like to be treated.
C o m m u n i t y
It is our intent to connect with you and create a community of not only like/minds, but also like-hearts.
As a vegan website focused on low-impact and living a less wasteful life, we abhor food waste! We agree that ”food-waste is of the world’s dumbest problem.”
The creative challenge
The goal is to make 100 sandwiches (give or take) quite a small budget. Toronto Food Not Bombs distributes these to houseless and underprivileged people in Downtown Toronto. The location is Allan Gardens (outside the Botanical Garden) on Sundays at 11 am. Packages of food are also handed out during this time.
12 Loaves of bread feeds 100
First off, we enlisted the help of café Serano (Serano Bakery) to slice the twelve loaves of Cobs Bread donated bread to Toronto Food Not Bombs. We quite simply could not make the sandwiches without them and of course our TFNB partners and donors.
According to a volunteer who picks up the bread from the bakery and delivers it all, the company aims to bake an excess of over $1000 worth of products so that they are able to donate to communities who need it most! Support them with your purchases; most of their breads and baked goods are vegan!
cobsbread.com
Week one sandwiches for Toronto Food Not Bombs: chickpea fritters
Week one’s sandwich is inspired by a food expert whose amazing and simple recipe the fritters were based on. He was kind and patient enough to walk us through the process of how he makes his chickpea fritters, answering numerous questions and giving advice based on our many adaptations to the original gem.
Apart from walking us through every step of how to make the perfect chickpea fritters, our food expert told us about Toronto Food Not Cops. This movement feeds the houseless in the city delicious and nutritious vegan food!
Here are some of the images of the process captured with a phone camera by Kerly, (Kerly Ilves Photography)
How can you support the work of Food Not Bombs?
- Donate If you can give back in this way, donate to your local chapter of Food Not Bombs. If you reside in Toronto, you can donate to Toronto FNB You can also donate to the global chapter PLEASE MAKE A DONATION TODAY
- Both individuals and companies can donate monetarily and/or in-kind (supplies, groceries, food, etc.)
- Volunteer at Toronto Food Not Bombs or your local chapter
- Find out if Food Not Bombs in your city, if not, mobilize the community to create a chapter
- If you live in Toronto or the GTA, contact TFNB to volunteer, as many more of us are needed, now more than ever! Website, Facebook, Instagram
- Donate food that you don’t want or need to FNB to provide free meals to disadvantaged people.
- If you are vegan and interested in supporting our sandwich making workshop on Saturdays, please contact us.
- Do you have delicious budget-friendly sandwich ideas for the Toronto Food Not Bombs sandwich team? Comment below, DM us on Instagram or contact us on this site.
Share your thoughts:
What do you think of the work that the grassroots organization Food Not Bombs is doing across the global chapters?