The white household fridge located through a stone brick arch at the Unitarian Universalists church in Mount Airy might just look like an ordinary fridge, filled with an assortment of produce from ripe tomatoes to multicolored apples. But to Nicole Williams, co-founder of Mt. Airy Community Fridge & Pantry, and to the Philadelphia community, it is a lifeline representing solidarity and connectedness. 

In November 2022, Williams was asked by a former colleague if she’d be interested in starting a community fridge. A few months later, in January 2023, the Mt. Airy Community Fridge & Pantry joined Philadelphia’s large network of community fridges. There are over 30 community fridges in Philadelphia that are currently active, according to Share Food Program, a hunger relief organization in the Philadelphia area.

Williams said running a community fridge has connected her with her community in lasting, meaningful ways. 

“Just to see that these individuals can come here and get excited over items and be able to say, ‘Oh, I’m also a teacher, and I can share this with my classroom,’ and having conversations with these individuals is, frankly, just a beautiful thing,” Williams said.

Background 

Community fridges, often located in residential areas in cities like Philadelphia, are public refrigerators and pantries stocked with food available to community members, free of charge. 

As of 2023, Philadelphia’s rate of food insecurity is at 18.6%, over 5% higher than the 11.8% national average, according to the BMC Public Health journal.

Many of Philly’s fridges were started during the covid-19 pandemic when community members mobilized in response to an increase in food insecurity as access to healthy, fresh food declined. 

Sonam Parikh, executive director of The People’s Fridge in West Philadelphia, said she decided to start the fridge after she saw covid-19 damaging her community. 

“A lot of supermarkets closed down in our area, and it increased the level of food apartheid that was occurring within West Philadelphia,” Parikh said. “Having experienced personal, devastating losses from covid and being in lockdown … the fridge became a project.” 

Susan Bloch became involved with a community fridge in Germantown during the pandemic, assisting with cleaning and maintenance. 

“During the pandemic, I think a lot of us got more aware of food insecurity, and I was looking for something I could do outside because we were still being outside and not inside with other people,” Bloch said. “And just by really some weird coincidences, I found out about the Germantown fridge.” 

Victoria Jayne, a four-year volunteer for South Philadelphia Community Fridge, also got involved with a community fridge during the pandemic. Jayne first heard about the South Philadelphia Community Fridge, which operates fridges throughout South Philly, through Instagram, where she saw a post about the organization needing volunteers with vehicles, which she had. 

“It seemed like a really good opportunity to continue to be engaged in the community without having to spend time in people’s homes,” Jayne said. 

Collaboration

Philly’s community fridges are volunteer-run and managed. Benji Aaron, Jayne’s partner and another long-term volunteer for South Philadelphia Community Fridge, said South Philadelphia Community Fridge is “horizontally structured,” meaning there is no strict hierarchy of roles.

“We do have a nonprofit status through fiscal sponsorship, but we don’t have a board or an executive team,” Aaron said. “We do have some members, like us, who maybe do a little more sometimes, handle some of the admin stuff and logistics, but that can change from time to time.”

The Germantown fridge, Mount Airy fridge and The People’s Fridge are similarly kept running through the group efforts of community volunteers. Williams said Philadelphia’s community fridges embrace collaboration and supporting each other in times of need. 

“We collaborate behind the scenes with each other so that we can make sure to share resources. Or if there’s a pickup someone at another fridge can’t do, they’ll let us know so we can grab that,” Williams said. “It is a great network of people all over Philadelphia who sincerely care.”

Sourcing and mutual aid

The food stocked in community fridges comes from a variety of sources. Some food comes directly from community members, who leave food in the fridge for their neighbors to take. This food could be items an individual shopped for, a meal a family cooked in their kitchen or produce grown in a home garden. 

Other food sources for community fridges include donation drives and nonprofits like Northwest Mutual Aid Collective and Sharing Excess — which has a chapter at St. Joe’s — that are dedicated to addressing food insecurity and reducing food waste.

Bloch said that at the Germantown fridge, food rescue, or the process of collecting food from grocery stores and restaurants that would have otherwise been thrown away, makes “what [they] do possible.”

Parikh said the winter is the most difficult time of year for her community of West Philadelphia, making donations go “the longest and farthest during this time.” 

“The next time you’re thinking about what you can do for your community members, approaching your local pantry or community fridge would be a really great idea,” Parikh said. 

The staff at all four fridges The Hawk spoke to embrace mutual aid, a model of community support rooted in the voluntary exchange of resources and services.

“The idea behind it is that with mutual aid, we’re not enforcing barriers or creating separate classes of people where there’s someone who gives and someone who takes,” Jayne said. “It’s a big circle.” 

Parikh distinguished mutual aid from charity, which insinuates a hierarchy. 

“Charity denotes a sense of being in a position to give somebody else something, whereas mutual aid equalizes us and puts us all on the same platform,” Parikh said. 

Williams said the collaborative community aspect of food donation is essential to building community and giving agency to individuals who use the fridge.

“It’s a great opportunity to bring agency but also shared collaboration,” Williams said. “When you have community members who might rely on services, they might feel outside of the cycle in terms of community building and community service. But by saying ‘No, you are part of that donation, and we will take your donations,’ they’re very much part of this process.”

Mutual aid, Williams said, is also critical to restorative justice and the justice-seeking process as a whole.

“This is how we can collaborate and work towards that justice, whatever justice is,” Williams said. “Whether it’s economic, food justice, racial justice, inequality or just the overall concept of justice.” 

Impact 

Although community fridges are incredibly beneficial, they are not permanent solutions, Bloch said. Rather, they function more as “Band-Aids.” 

“What we do is a Band-Aid on a really broken economy and food system where there are people who can’t afford to buy food, and they have to choose between rent and food,” Bloch said. 

Jayne said she has witnessed firsthand the painful reality of hunger, seeing community members open up the fridges and fall to their knees in tears.

“We hear from people all the time,” Jayne said. “Just the other week, a volunteer told us she was at our pantry at Mifflin Square [Park], and she was talking to someone who had just gotten out of prison, and he said that he wouldn’t have been able to eat over the last week if the pantry wasn’t there.”

Jayne said the food taken from community fridges is also sometimes redistributed to others in the community, broadening the circle of people who benefit from the fridges’ resources.

“We have a neighbor who’s a real regular who comes by all the time, and he’s always taking a bunch of food,” Jayne said. “And some people, if they see that, they might be like, ‘Why is this one person taking so much food?’ [But] when we get into conversation with him, we found out that he transports food himself on his bicycle to an encampment of unhoused people.”

Williams said amid the business of life, it can be easy for people to walk by those in need and “not really see them.” Working with the fridge, Williams said, helped her connect more deeply with her community members. 

“It’s created the ability and the opportunity for us to see each other,” Williams said. “I’ve lived in Mount Airy almost all my life, and these are individuals who, otherwise, if I wasn’t engaged in this work, I could very easily pass by on the street or drive by and just not pay attention. But I’m actually able to hear their stories, learn about them and just see them.”