'Anyone is welcome': New community fridge opens in Hamilton's Crown Point

A new community fridge opened in Hamilton's Crown Point area in the east end Tuesday, offering fresh food to anyone who needs it. 

The outdoor fridge, located at 204 Ottawa St. N., can be accessed 24/7 and has a shelter built around it so it can be used all year.

It will offer items such as fresh produce, canned goods, dried goods like rice, water bottles and personal care items such as menstrual and dental hygiene products, for anyone who needs them.

"Anyone at all is welcome to come by the fridge and take whatever they need. There are no restrictions on how much they take," said Jacqueline Cantar, an organizer with Community Fridges HamOnt. "We trust that they are able to determine that."

The fridge is the third to open in Hamilton — all this year. Cantar and a group of volunteers launched the first in March after they saw community fridges sprouting up in Toronto, Calgary, Regina and other North American cities. Closer to the Hamilton area, a community fridge opened in St. Catharines, Ont., in July. 

The Hamilton group originally set out to open a handful to cover different parts of the city, with the other two fridges located at 44 Greendale Drive, in the Gilkson neighbourhood on the west Mountain, and 249 John St. N., in Beasley.

Unlike a food bank, the community fridge is not a charity, and it doesn't have requirements for accessing the food or limits to how much can be taken, Cantar said.

"It's about being accessible and offering a level of dignity, because people are able to independently come by whenever they want to," they said.

The fridges accept most donated food except for raw meat, home-made meals and left-overs, and encourage restaurants to contribute food that would otherwise be thrown away. Cantar said a group of volunteers visit the fridges several times a day to check on the food and sanitize the fridge as a precaution against COVID-19.

While there have been issues of food insecurity long before the pandemic — Hamilton Food Share reported a record high of 8,677 households accessing a food bank in March 2019 alone — Cantar said it made the problem of hunger in the city especially acute and revealed the holes in food systems. 

"When there's an international crisis, it makes it so much more evident that we need to care for each other because the government isn't necessarily going to look after all of our needs as much as would be ideal," they said.

"[The pandemic] just exacerbated the need for community support in all ways, not just in food support."

Fridges also build community, volunteer says

Community fridges are one of several examples of grassroots community care initiatives that have popped up since the start of the pandemic to help meet the needs of different groups within the city. 

CareMongering HamOnt launched in March 2020 by a coalition of groups, delivering food directly to people's homes. The Mountain Mutual Aid Network launched earlier this year, collecting and distributing food and other supplies to those who need it.

Jessica Bonilla-Damptey, who serves as director of the Sexual Assault Centre of Hamilton Area (SACHA), is also a volunteer with Community Fridges HamOnt. She said that she's used the community fridge in the city's west Mountain when she's thirsty and needs water, and she has seen the way that the fridges lead to a sense of "ownership" of the community's well-being.

"If I'm able to bring that water back another day, I will," she said. "That's what it is for."

She said that for her, a vital part of the community fridges is that they offer food without any sort of needs assessment or eligibility process that is sometimes required at food banks.

"You are deserving because you are human. You are deserving because you are my neighbour," she said, adding that it lets people see that they can take matters into their own hands to take care of each other rather than relying on authorities.

"Everyone deserves access to food," she said. "We all need food to live, we all need water to live."

Cantar said the community fridges aren't a solution to food insecurity, and that they would like to see a universal basic income, more accessible childcare and free and affordable housing. 

"It's a small bandage for when people literally don't have some food and need to grab something," Cantar said. But they added that they have seen other groups in the city, especially churches, reach out to them and ask about setting up their own fridges. 

"Hopefully it can also be an example of what you can do when you are mindful of the power of community."