New Seattle pantries fight food insecurity one fridge at a time (Snohomish: refrigerators, neighborhood)

[homesinseattle]

Article here. https://crosscut.com/culture/2020/09...ne-fridge-time

“If you didn’t know it was there, it would be easy to miss. To find it, ignore the view of Elliott Bay and make your way down a set of gravel steps. Walk past the apple tree in full fruit toward the small plots of land teeming with zucchinis and tomatoes. There it is, on your right, in front of the toolshed: a small, unassuming fridge, painted sky blue and decorated with a pattern of luscious peaches and emerald leaves.

“FREE FOOD!” black letters on the fridge exclaim. “Take what you need, leave what you can.”
The refrigerator, plugged in and nestled in the leafy shade of Seattle’s Danny Woo Community Garden, is part of a new, citywide network of so-called “community fridges.” Taking after similar projects in New York, Oakland, San Francisco, Milwaukee and other U.S. cities, a local group of volunteers installs and stocks the fridges as a way to get free, fresh food and produce to people who may need it, no questions asked. Amid rising food insecurity, this literally cool food pantry can keep produce and other surplus food donated by volunteers — eggs, bread, yogurt — fresh for longer.

“We all need food, and we all deserve it,” says Christina Charlton, one of the Seattle Community Fridge’s volunteers. Plus, there's plenty of it, says Jordan Saibic, another volunteer. “A lot of people don’t have access to food, [but] there is actually so much food that is thrown away, either from restaurants or grocery stores,” Saibic says.

Charlton and Saibic kickstarted the Seattle mutual aid project this summer after seeing Instagram photos of friends setting up brightly painted refrigerators on sidewalks in New York (where some call them “Friendly Fridges”) and in Los Angeles.

Since then, the group has grown to 10-plus members and set up three working fridges, the one in the Danny Woo garden in the Chinatown-International District and two in the South Park neighborhood. There are at least four more in the works for locations in Beacon Hill, West Seattle and North Seattle.

Community fridges are not a completely novel concept. Some say the idea originated in Berlin, nearly a decade ago, and volunteers have operated nonrefrigerated free pantries in the U.S. for a while. But ever since COVID-19 put millions out of a job and pushed food insecurity rates in the U.S. to record levels, neighbors have been pitching in. Some have turned “Little Free Libraries” into “Little Free Food” pantries. Others have joined the international network built on a cooler cousin, the fridge (the California-based nonprofit “Freedge" is mapping the rapidly increasing locations).

In King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, food insufficiency rates have nearly doubled since the start of the pandemic, with one in 10 residents reporting not having enough to eat. People of color have been especially hard hit.

Access to food and [other] economic issues are really exacerbated by COVID-19 and the economic consequences of it,” Saibic says. “Mutual aid networks like this are getting a lot more traction, and a lot more people involved, because they’re realizing that at any point they can be put in a position where they don’t have access to food.”

[rjshae]

It's good to see this type of effort. But I have a feeling things could get very bad this winter. It's concerning.