COMMUNITY PROFILE COMMUNITY FRIDGES COMBAT FOOD INSECURITY CREDIT: PAULA BARD BY PAULA BARD “IT IS THE MOST SIMPLE HUMAN THING YOU CAN DO.” – Jim Norris, Mutiny Information Cafe I VISITED THE COMMUNITY FRIDGE on Ellsworth Ave. and Broadway St. on a warm Saturday afternoon recently. This Denver fridge, bursting with free food, sits outside Mutiny Information Cafe. Painted exuberantly with greens and blues and orange mountains, you can’t miss it! The neighborhood has made sure to keep the well-organized and clean fridge jam-packed with food. The fridge is quickly becoming a valuable neighborhood resource. While I was there, a man and woman came by and left a loaf of fresh, home-baked bread. “Still warm!” the woman announced, clearly pleased with her contribution. With trepidation at first, Jim Norris of Mutiny Information Cafe agreed to host the fridge. Now, after a trial of two months, he is delighted and feels that “this gives the people donating a sense of ownership in our community. You give food to someone in your neighborhood, you see that reaction right away.” Norris has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years. “We can make sure that our community is fed and is safe,” said Norris. “We can do it ourselves. We can do these things.” It is important to him that they are not relying on the government or charities for help. As Norris explained, “We can watch people that have been lying in the street, watch their color improve, it gives them a sense of self-confidence because they’re eating regular food. It is the most simple human thing you can do.” Mutiny Information Cafe’s community fridge opened at the beginning of December and has been embraced by the neighborhood. Since then, three more community fridges have opened in Denver. Denver Community Fridge was founded by Eli Zain, a graduate student at the University of Colorado. What exactly is a community fridge? According to the Denver Community Fridge website, “Our fridges are a type of mutual aid project that is aimed for local business and community members to drop off fresh plus homemade meals to support and combat food insecurity within the community.” Zain believes that “if you give people the opportunity to step forward and help their community, they will.” These fridges are beautifully painted, well maintained, and abundantly stocked! Clearly, the community has embraced this mutual aid food exchange as a critical, collaborative way to sustain each other. Base Coat Nail Salon hosts a fridge at 27th Ave. and Walnut St. in the RINO district. Huckleberry Roasters hosts their fridge at North Pecos St. and 43rd Ave. Amethyst Coffee company hosts theirs at 4999 W. 44th Street in the CREDIT: PAULA BARD CREDIT: PAULA BARD CREDIT: PAULA BARD Sunnyside neighborhood. There are more planned for East Colfax and Capitol Hill. Ana Sofia Cornelius, an organizer with Denver Homeless Out Loud, said they are looking at putting one in front of their office at Park Ave. and California St., north of downtown. That is, if they can figure out the electrical hook-up situation. Estimates vary, but the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment has estimated that 25 percent of the population is struggling with food scarcity some or most of the time. That amount represents one in four, a staggering number that has more than doubled since the pandemic started. IT BEGAN IN BROOKLYN The first community fridge in the U.S. was placed last February, by Thadeus Umpster, an organizer with In Our Hearts and associated with the Bed-Stuy Food Not Bombs community food share. He set up the group’s first refrigerator in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, a city struggling with hunger, calculated around 25 percent. According to an article in the New York Times, Umpster had snatched the fridge from Craigslist for free, hoping to put it in his building’s laundry room. But when it didn’t fit through the front door, it ended up outside and was immediately utilized by the community. “We are trying to have a different type of relationship with people, a relationship between equals and not a hand out from a higher authority or privileged person,” said Umpster, referring to the standard lack of hierarchy, which is a core value of mutual aid projects. The idea of community fridges and offering free food to those who need it – has been around for decades. More than 50 years ago, the Black Panther Party distributed free breakfasts to children. Mutual aid groups have been stepping up to sustain each other through hard times since the mid8 DENVER VOICE February 2021
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