This week we feature a very unique collective that aims to provide food and hydration to anyone who needs them as mutual aid. The Community Fridge collective work to have very few barriers to access for those in need, hoping to reach as many people as possible with this community care. Ollie (they/them) is a community volunteer that prefers to stay in the background but reached out to share this story to raise awareness of both the permanent Community Fridge location and the monthly Pop Up Pantry (PUP).
“We are an entirely volunteer based collective! We are by community, for community, with everything shared on a ‘give what you can, take ALL you need’ basis”, explains Ollie. “Our 24/7 fridge & pantry at 1310 Bertram Street has been open for nearly a year and a half, and our Pop Up Pantry (PUP), has been running for 9 months, thus far always in Rutland. While we organize around food, building community trust and active connections of care is just as core to our collective! We also raise awareness about how widespread food insecurity is, and work to reduce food waste.”
“We are a mutual aid collective that operates as a ‘horizontal organization’,” says Ollie. “This means that rather than having a few people determine how everything works, the whole group brings forward whatever thoughts, skills, and knowledge they have to share. This structure creates a lot more freedom and flexibility! We believe people should be in touch with their own needs, doing what they can on their own terms. Anyone can be as big or small a part of the organization as they like.”
Volunteer opportunities with the Kelowna Community Fridge are essentially infinite but the core tasks are cleaning the fridge and area, stocking the shelves, picking up food, and doing community outreach both online and in person. For food, someone could simply pick up a few items along with their own groceries to put in the fridge, become an occasional or regular driver for pick ups, or even reach out to local people, stores, and businesses to organize donations!
“Recently, we’ve been working towards rebuilding our 24/7 fridge/pantry shed and we could use people skilled in drafting plans, estimating costs, and physically constructing the structure,” says Ollie. “We also want to thrive as a creative community. We’ve had visual artists make posters or graphics to help spread the word, musicians attend events to share their music, writers crafting words to reach more people - these are all fantastic ways to engage with the collective. We have meetings every two weeks that anyone with interest in the collective are welcome to - learning about mutual aid or sharing your thoughts and ideas are great ways to participate.”
“Volunteers are everything that we are,” continues Ollie. “Without community members taking part in caring for each other, the Kelowna Community Fridge collective wouldn’t exist at all.”
Anyone can drop by the fridge to donate goods or help clean at any time. If they would like to connect more with other people, prospective volunteers can email kelownacommunityfridge@gmail.com. The collective also accepts financial contributions through their account on Open Collective https://opencollective.com/kelownacommunityfridge.
“One of my biggest joys is seeing children reacting to the fresh fruit we usually have available at the Pop Up Pantry,” concludes Ollie, sharing their enthusiasm for the impact all of the volunteers make. “They often jump, shout, and even dance with excitement! It’s also very fun when one person walks by and takes a bit of food, and then returns, sometimes over and over, with more people they know to make sure they get food, too.”
“I can’t even count how many people have shared that the food and care shared, through the main fridge or at PUP, drastically changes their day, week, month, or even life for the better,” states Ollie. “Many folks become immensely emotional that other people want to help them without even knowing them; there’s often the sentiment that our work enables or inspires them to show up more for people in their lives and community. This mutual aid ripples out in so many ways!”
Check out the Community Fridge’s social channels to learn more:
• Facebook: facebook.com/kelowna.community.fridge
• Instagram: instagram.com/kelowna.community.fridge
Dorothee Birker is the communications and development coordinator for KCR Community Resources. If you are interested in sharing your volunteer or organizational news, please contact Dorothee at dorothee@kcr.ca.