Community Fridges are communal places where surplus food is shared with the local community by local businesses and individuals. So far, they've helped thousands of people connect to their communities, access nutritious food, save money and reduce waste. They are a proven way of stopping good food from winding up in the trash. Surplus food is provided by local businesses or members of the public, and is then available for collection by people who need it. Community Fridges are housed in accessible public spaces, making surplus perishable food freely available to all community members. Community Fridges work on the honor system.
Over 3 months, one Community Fridge can:
Community Fridges are also known as Solidarity Fridges and Honesty Fridges. They have been successfully introduced in Spain, Germany, the UK, and Ireland, and are starting to take hold in the U.S. Each fridge operates in different ways depending on local circumstances. Demand for Community Fridges has been growing very quickly and Hubbub, based in London has recently launched The Community Fridge Network to support new Fridges and build a supportive, collaborative network of people to share resources and experiences. For US fridges, they will help to navigate local laws around health and safety and provide you with as much knowledge and information as possible to help get your Fridge off the ground.
Find out exactly what's involved in our 5 Step Guide.
Community Fridges are communal places where surplus food is shared with the local community by local businesses and individuals. So far, they've helped thousands of people connect to their communities, access nutritious food, save money and reduce waste. They are a proven way of stopping good food from winding up in the trash. Surplus food is provided by local businesses or members of the public, and is then available for collection by people who need it. Community Fridges are housed in accessible public spaces, making surplus perishable food freely available to all community members. Community Fridges work on the honor system.
Over 3 months, one Community Fridge can:
Community Fridges are also known as Solidarity Fridges and Honesty Fridges. They have been successfully introduced in Spain, Germany, the UK, and Ireland, and are starting to take hold in the U.S. Each fridge operates in different ways depending on local circumstances. Demand for Community Fridges has been growing very quickly and Hubbub, based in London has recently launched The Community Fridge Network to support new Fridges and build a supportive, collaborative network of people to share resources and experiences. For US fridges, they will help to navigate local laws around health and safety and provide you with as much knowledge and information as possible to help get your Fridge off the ground.
Find out exactly what's involved in our 5 Step Guide.
During 2nd and 3rd quarter 2022, ICWEN Community Fridge has continued focusing on fresh fruits and vegetable food deliveries to our ICWEN community, particularly those with chronic illnesses.
Chronic diseases are common and costly, and many are linked to lifestyle choices that are within a person's hands to change. However, since the pandemic, many of our recipients can't afford to purchase groceries, especially fresh whole foods after high medical costs.
ICWEN Community Fridge promotes change to our recipients by helping them to eat nutritious foods and encouraging them to get more exercise in order to better manage their illnesses, avoid complications and prolong their lives.
Preparing for delivery and pick-up at our weekly food give away in the ICWEN Community Fridge at our new Inner City Women's Empowerment Network headquarters located 200 E. 75th Street, Chicago, IL.
Thanks to Hands of Hope, Illinois and other organizations like it who work tirelessly networking food for the underserved.
ICWEN ended 4th Quarter 2021 and 1st Quarter 2022 moving and setting up our new location as we continued to serve our ICWEN community with fresh fruits, vegetables and non-perishable food items for their dinner table.
Our team also has remained committed to coaching our clients in the ICWEN Nutrition Health Program.
Thanks to the generosity of our partners, ICWEN Community Fridge has been able to continue distributing food to our clients during 2nd & 3rd quarters.
Health coaching is evolving as we have maintained deliveries of healthy foods to families in need, seniors with illnesses as well as assisted young parents to make better food choices for their growing families to stay healthy.
For the first quarter in 2021, our primary focus was continuing to deliver healthy food to our senior citizens, disabled, clients with health issues and low income women and children households.
Thankfully, we are still able to accomplish that goal by working with several community churches. Our partnership with the Body of Christ Deliverance Ministries allowed us to pick up and deliver healthy food boxes every week as we checked in on our clients.
We also offered Holistic Health Coaching to those clients challenged with poor diet habits and struggling mentally, emotionally, physically and financially. We lost several clients during the pandemic, but are continuing our connection with their families.
During December the ICWEN Community Fridge continued to connect with close to 300 families by picking up fresh fruits and vegetables, packing boxes and delivering to our families in need as well as our clients with pre-existing health conditions.
We partnered with fraternities and sororities to distribute food and collect coats for their annual food and coat drive.
Some clients completed the health history forms we distributed with the food boxes. Through the Integrative Nutrition Health program we identified that most clients were experiencing stress during the pandemic and concerned about diet.
Through a virtual meeting and individual calls we focused on reducing stress's impact on the diet. Stress management may naturally help support a more nutritious diet of whole foods with more fresh vegetable intake opposed to processed or fried foods.
By incorporating practices like meditation, yoga, breathing and loving kindness exercises, it helps to minimize stress's impact on diet.
As we embark upon a new year, the Inner City Women's Empowerment Network looks forward to expanding and gaining more access to other food banks and distributors which will allow us to to continue feeding our Community Fridge clients and restoring hope to those in need.
Best wishes and continued blessings in the NEW YEAR!
The Inner City Women's Empowerment Network (ICWEN Community Fridge) partnered with the 200+ Seniors Association on Saturday, November 14 to package and deliver hot catered meals, valuable resource information and gifts for our senior citizens. The catered meals were donated by John Wiley, Founder of the Association.
The annual event is usually held as a sit down dinner, but due to the pandemic we wanted to continue to connect, check on, feed, fellowship and share the love with senior citizens during these times by taking the dinners directly to each of them.
Our senior citizens were so delighted and appreciative to receive the meals.
Wow Barb, to God be the glory for the things that He is doing through you and ICWEN. I am so grateful to be a part of your organization. Thank you for all that you do. I know the sacrifices that you make and your labor of love. God sees and He knows...and I believe that He has even greater in store for you. Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard...I do believe that it has entered your heart though. Be blessed and again thank you...it is such an honor to be connected with you.
Awesome! So encouraging
This week at ICWEN, we picked up fresh chicken breasts, fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, yogurt, cheese and pastries and delivered to our seniors, widows, cancer, diabetics, dialysis & lupus patients. We also connected with veterans and grandmothers that are raising their grandchildren. During these times it is necessary to connect with those that can't get out. A smile, kind word, short visit or phone call goes a long way......