community fridges
- Mia Morrison
- Oct 29
- 3 min read
This past spring, the Baltimore Community Fridge Network launched - and has been an amazing resource for food distribution in the City (and some in the county as well).
You can connect with the community on Facebook, Instagram, or see all the info in one place on their Linktree.
Not in Baltimore? Check out the Freedge website (not as up-to-date/active as BCFN, but still a resource).
How could you be a part?
you can collect takeout containers (well-washed and dry) to give to people who are distributing food to fridges. This helps save costs (so people contributing food can spend their money on food instead of packaging for the food) and is better for the planet - reusing is better than recycling, when possible! Baltimore City also sadly doesn’t recycle takeout containers, even when washed/dry.
if you keep a stash of takeout containers and tape/sharpie (for labelling) in your car - if you are ever at a big event with leftover food, you can repackage it and drop some off at the nearest fridge on your way home.
you can find a local fridge near you (they have a whole map on their Linktree) and connect with the organizer to see how you can support. That could look like bringing food, collecting and giving takeout containers, sharing about the fridge with neighbors, connecting with local restaurants and stores who might be able to give surplus food, or possibly other things - the host of your local fridge will be able to share how you can best get involved.
if you are ever in need of some food, check your local fridge!
With rising food costs, increasing unhoused neighbors, and lots of food insecurity in the City (now including the suspension of SNAP Nov 1st) - this is a great, grassroots way to get involved in some mutual aid and community care. And with so much food regularly going to waste, unused and uneaten, piling up in landfills and releasing methane (unless you compost it) this increasingly seems like an issue where the abundance of some can meet the lack of many.
And it's not just those with money who contribute: we've had unhoused neighbors go to food giveaways, and then drop off the things they couldn't use at our pantry.
And it's not just those with ample time that contribute: We've snagged extra food from parties and events, repackaged and labelled it, and put it in our fridge (and heard neighbors comment, "that's the first time I found food in there" - because the food does go very fast).
Sometimes when we cook a meal and not all of it fits into a tupperware for leftovers (or we know we won't be able to eat the leftovers) into the fridge it goes.
We don't have the margin to operate a whole food giveaway setup - but that's part of the beauty of this system. It's not about any one person doing heavy lifting - but a lot of people coming together for the purpose of community care and mutual aid.
We had space under our stoop that could fit a large mini fridge and some shelves for a pantry, we had an outdoor outlet and capacity for our electric bill to rise a bit (which it hasn't even seemed to do, yet), and we are slowly building our community and connections to help better contribute food more consistently to meet the high needs in our area. The fridge is a small resource and asset to the community - not a giveaway project by a large organization or a white-savior-ish attempt at individualistic food supply…
…what really fills this fridge is the community, relationships, and connections that it forms between the people who get to interact with it.
If you're interested in supporting the fridge Daniel and I host - check out these lists for ideas...
One is focused on local support:
And the other is focused on remote support:
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