Utica Community Fridge

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Utica Community Fridge

Feeding the people of Utica, NY. Free and with no strings attached. 24/7

Reducing food waste, addressing hunger. Take what you want, leave what you don't.

Find The Fridge at 112 South St, thanks to Hope House!

04/06/2023

Peace everyone!
Another update post -

We are currently making the rounds and reconnecting with or initiating contact with folks who are interested in:
• Learning more about the fridge
• Joining our meetings and brainstorming ways to organize
• Volunteering to do pickups, drop offs, cleanings, grocery runs, etc. (once we have a fridge up and running!)
• Help turning our old Rainbow Fridge into a dry food, Narcan, first aid, etc. drop off/pickup spot
• Canvassing, door knocking, introducing ourselves to neighbors
• Finding, meeting and speaking with new organizations
• and anything else folks feel they can offer!

We still are in the process of reconfiguring ourselves, finding a new fridge, a new location to put the fridge, and rebuilding our old Rainbow Fridge

In the meantime please don’t stop reaching out, don’t hesitate to comment or ask questions, message us with anything at all and we will try to respond in as timely a manner as we can

——

Finally, a point on the essence and material of our organizing efforts. Our slogan is, as we know, quite a goal indeed. But we understand that the reason why healthy, nutritious, and and quality food isn’t readily available for people is NOT because it is impossible, or because “people have always gone hungry” - it IS because the people who own the factories, processing plants, huge farms, land, tools, and store fronts used to produce the food DO NOT redistribute the food and the wealth that comes from selling that food with those who actually grow, harvest, package, transport, and sell that food!

The people are under attack
Hunger is an attack on those who are made poor, those who are exploited by an exploitative system.

We also know that there are other ways to “do food”, there are ways where our slogan could be more than just a hashtag, but a reality - and to get there, we need you. Every one of you. Everyone with a heart and a conscience and helping hands is needed. We want to meet, connect, talk with and organize with anyone willing to meet us at our minimal points of agreement, our points of unity, and who is willing to fight however is needed to make sure that !!

03/19/2023

Little update post! 👀

- We are still in search of locations to put up a new fridge! We are currently in the process of repairing our rainbow fridge and it will likely become our new dry food, canned food, and other products shelving unit! 🙂 the inside was exposed for a while after a storm which ripped the freezer door off. So now it likely will not be safe to store food that requires refrigeration and constant / stable temperatures.
In the meantime we are interested in talking with locations that could house the fridge, 24/7, could allow us to plug it into their electrical outlet, and would be willing to check on and make sure there is no damage to the fridge as often as is possible. We will clean, stock, and do the rest!

Also, if anyone would want to house a non-electric food storage unit of sorts, hygeine product drop-offs, “community libraries”, or places where folks can get first-aid materials, please let us know and we will be happy to discuss how to make it happen!

- Also we are looking for any leads, ideas or help with getting new fridges (yes! plural, if possible and feasible!) We at this point have one possible lead, and although we don’t want to put the cart before the horse and overwhelm ourselves when we even have yet to find a place to plug it in and house it, if you have any ideas or leads, please message us!

- We of course are ALWAYS looking for new volunteers and organizers to help with outreach, meetings, planning, discussing, fundraising, etc. and eventually when we have things set up, pick up, drop off, grocery runs, cleaning the fridges, etc.
At this point, without an active fridge, our goal in meeting with people who would like to volunteer is to gauge where people are at, what their capacity is, what they feel they can and cannot offer or assist with, any leads, connections, ideas or help they are willing to give, and think we should persue.

We also just want to meet and get to know other people from the area and hear what is on y’all’s minds!! 🙂

Finally, we are always grateful for the support, questions, concerns and messages of hope from you all, and continue to work, fighting the issues of hunger, poverty, inequality, and exploitation in Utica, Oneida County, the US, and the world.

Any and all support is always welcome, please message us with whatever ideas, questions, concerns, etc.

Any interests you might have in organizing an event discussing food sovereignty, a town hall or public meeting to hear about the issues facing people in the area, a canvassing or campaign to reach out to otherwise ignored or isolated communities in Utica, demonstrations against inequality, segregation in Utica communities, racism, etc. and any other ways we can organize against the issues of exploitation and oppression, together, let us know and we can make something happen!

Everybody Eats!
But only if everybody works together to make that reality come to life.

01/26/2023

Peace everyone! The team suggests for people to look through both our slides and read through the full caption!

We at the fridge wanted to give a little update into what’s been going on, and our needs for help.

A few weeks ago, we received an email from the Hope House asking us to remove our fridge from their property as it has caused too much unwanted stress for them.. After two years we have seen all of which comes with being a local community fridge, but our time at the Hope House has come to a close, as they have asked us to move our fridge’s location. We understand that this will come as a shock to some, and specifically a frustration to others who get food from South St whenever they can, and it certainly was a surprise for some of us as well. We appreciate all the time Hope House has allowed us to set up at their location, the ability to meet with and talk with the people there, the employees, the folks seeking services, and the chance to make an impact. We know that this WILL NOT be the end of the fridge, but we are sad to have to pack up and leave those we’ve connected much with over the past two years.

We are in need of a great amount of help folks! We need to find a place to keep this effort going!

At the moment, we are looking for permanent spots to w land our effort so that we as a community can do this together!

If you own a business, local shop, restaurant, food pantry, or simply have a location where you would be willing or wanting to help us put up a fridge in the WEST or EAST utica areas, please contact us either here, or at our email [email protected] and let us know what it is you could be willing or wanting to lend us a hand with either location or donation wise.
If you would like to set up a time to call or zoom in order to figure out details, again, please do not hesitate to ask!

This is, and always has been a mass effort. We CANNOT do this alone. We need you all, the community, to help get this effort and other efforts across Utica and Oneida County up off the ground. We need stable availability of quality, healthy food; we need folks in the worst situations of their lives to know they have a place to go, food to eat, people who care. We don’t have the quantity of spaces and efforts to provide for those in need, we must do more to get those going and to help each other, as we are all one awful disaster away from our “worst case” scenario. If we don’t help each other now, we will have failed not only one another, but ourselves.

We appreciate all those who donate, volunteer, share info, share our mission, and who will in the future be working side-by-side with us.
If you’d like to help try to find a new location for the fridge, or you yourself might have a location to offer up, please let us know and we will connect with you as soon as possible.

We will be making an additional post soon highlighting our specific needs for volunteering and things of the sort!

As always, EVERYBODY EATS—and everybody DESERVES to eat. Thank you all.

CA: $uticacommunityfridge
V:

01/23/2023

our monday restock as of 12:30! some of our amazing volunteers have restocked along w made some spaghetti!

please stay tuned on our upcoming posts as we will have important updates to make regarding our project, it’s location, and the fridge itself.

cashapp: $uticacommunityfridge
venmo: -communityfridge

12/19/2022

These are some of the MANY restocks we’ve been able to do this year, because of our amazing volunteers, community members, local businesses, and other community/co-operative organizations who’ve donated food, money, water, and their time to stock and clean the fridge, and tidying around. This is a collective effort, and must grow that way - we need you all! If this is to continue we need even MORE love and support and volunteers this next year, coming up.

As we come to the end of 2022, we have reflected on many of our failures, mistakes, positives and successes, along with those across the state and globe, and we are wanting more than anything to keep this effort going, to expand it, and to connect more with the wider community.

So, what do we need from you?

- First, SHARE THIS POST - I know that’s the easiest thing we all can do.

- Second, please consider donating funds, food, drinks, cleaning supplies, etc. as we are ENTIRELY donation-funded and cannot so much as put a piece of food in the fridge without our own, personally-earned money or the money/food donated by you all!

- Third, and finally, please consider joining, volunteering, and helping us to grow into other areas so we can provide a more holistic, systematic approach to ending the issue of food insecurity/hunger. This cannot be done through one fridge, one garden, or even one community. This has to be done by all, we must provide for ourselves and one another, help each other, learn, and build a new society from the “roots” up 😉

Thank you for all your support, love, messages, kind words, donations, volunteering and all the help we will continue (hopefully!) to receive into the new year!

12/14/2022

wednesday restock as of 3:15 today!

11/28/2022

Amazing restock tonight thanks to one of our amazing and frequent donors out in Sauquoit who we are very grateful for. The fridge is full of salads, veggies, and fruits, along w some sandwiches as of 6:30pm tonight. ❤️

11/02/2022

Wednesday restock as of 2 today!

10/19/2022

Our Wednesday restock!
CA: uticacommunityfridge
V: utica-communityfridge

10/16/2022

Late night restock tonight as of 10:50!
45 sandwich & fruit/snack to-go bags along w bread, milk, eggs, potato salad, water, and cans of tomato/chicken soup.

We apoligize for missing yesterday’s restock and not keeping up with our posts! We are still out here weekly and making sure we are doing our part as a volunteer team given our capacities.

Please spread our Cashapp/Venmo to those you know so we can continue to make our restocks, and let us know if you may be of any assistance to us!

We are working on getting back to those who have inquired about volunteering, and we are always on the hunt for more—esp as the winter season approaches.

Because, everybody eats- and everyone deserves to eat.

Stay safe everyone.

CA: uticacommunityfridge
V: utica-communityfridge

❤️

09/23/2022

Our Friday restock!

Address

112 South Street
Utica, NY
13501

Website

https://linktr.ee/uticacommunityfridge

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