This project In the spring of 2022, Jackie Wilda and I began work to establish a free-standing community free fridge (or "freedge") in the Near Northwest Neighborhood with the goal of addressing food insecurity, minimizing waste, and building community through the sharing of resources. We were able to launch this project in the spring of 2023 through the generosity of an Awesome Foundation grant and the gifts of time, ideas, and resources from our neighbors.

Now, two years later, we've made great progress on those goals with the help of many volunteers and partnerships with Cultivate Food Rescue and Sunchoke Farms. Team member Ben Lerman has made this project truly sustainable by working with volunteers to coordinate pickups from Cultivate five days/week. Molly Moon has contributed deep knowledge of food systems and fundraising through her work with the Purple Porch and Unity Gardens.

Together, we distribute hundreds of pounds of food per week by placing it in an outdoor fridge and a set of cabinets (both housed in a protective shed) that is open at all hours. This resource differs from some food banks and pantries in that there is no need to "prove" need in order to access it and it the people who use it can go at their own convenience.

We would like to expand these efforts by adding an upright community freezer and a shed redesigned with accessibility in mind. In fact we already have the plans because a group of architecture students from Notre Dame designed them for us during a collaboration on MLK day in 2024. Adding a freezer would allow us to share a larger quantity of food each week and meet greater need, especially in the wake of cuts to government safety net programs. A redesigned shed would continue to protect the fridge/freezer from theft, while also making it easier for anyone with mobility challenges to use the cabinets. We love knowing that our neighbors both contribute to and benefit from this resource.