Meet Joie, Harrison, and Rachel
Fridge Fridays at Brooklyn Tech
Joie Berhe-Lumax, Harrison Tillinghast, and Rachel Friedman, together with cohorts at Brooklyn Technical High School, haul something like 150 pounds of food every Friday, (“100 eggs last week,” Rachel laughs) headed for a community fridge. The food in the fridge is free for whoever needs it. Whoever is food insecure. They call it “Fridge Fridays.”
It’s taken a whole lot of commitment. It’s not paid. So I found myself asking: why? Where does this incredible commitment come from?
Consider:
The first community fridge they tried literally fell apart (“The door fell off,” Joie grimaces).
Not to mention the challenge of a bunch of teenagers hauling hundreds of eggs and dozens of carrots on the G train at Friday rush-hour.
What wasn’t hard—you have to love this— was getting other students involved. “We thought, it’s Friday, no chance,” says Joie. But there were 26 volunteers involved within two weeks.
Still, why? And what keeps them going?
Just want you to hear these:
Joie: How impactful the actions of even a few people can be
Joie: Both of my parents have always been passionate about giving back, so I’ve been part of many things throughout my life,
I personally have, thankfully, never experienced food insecurity. But when I was younger, my mom would take us to the Bowery Mission, they had sandwich packing days. Me and my sister would do the sandwich lines and help give out to families.
My mom is the founder of One Love Community Fridge, an organization that works to end food insecurity and provide people with access to healthy fresh food. They operate 5 of their own fridges. Initially it was just her buying food and taking it to fridges across the city.
You can see how it helps very quickly. People form communities there, they build togetherness.
So if I had to think of one person that's most influenced me it’s my Mom. She’s very dedicated to this cause. Seeing her make a difference in people's lives—it makes me truly believe that this is making a difference, it's helping real world people. She would wake up early to go to God's Love We Deliver to deliver food. She's dedicated so much time to it.
While food insecurity has always been an issue I was aware of, my awareness increased greatly when my mom started OLCF.
It showed me how impactful the actions of even a few people can be.
Harrison: Giving back in sixth grade
Harrison: My first personal experience with food insecurity was at my local church back in sixth grade. My brother and I, every Wednesday, we'd go to our local church. We would prepare meals for people from a shelter.
We'd sit down and eat with them and we'd talk with them. And the first thing I realized was these were all regular people just like me. They all share similar interests.
We talked about sports, talked about current events. And it made me realize, you know, we're all the same. The only difference is that they didn't have access to nutritious, adequate food. The number of food insecure in New York is shocking. It shouldn’t be like this.
That's what led me to later on starting to go to produce parties and work with Grassroots Grocery and then ultimately start this club at Brooklyn Tech.
I started working with Grassroots Grocery in ninth grade going to the produce parties.
Rachel: Something we can actually do
Rachel: I think for me personally, this is something that's tangible and that we can actually do.
Around my community, especially during Covid, a lot of people weren't able to provide meals for their family, or they just had to use their money for things like bills. They just couldn't prioritize food. I saw it's just a matter of who's going to take the time to make it happen.
Honestly, I think the moment where it clicked was the first time that we went and handed out food. The first time that we did a distribution and dropped off the food at the fridge, I saw a lady who was having trouble walking over the curb. There were many people around us, looking at what we were doing with the fridge, but no one seemed to notice her.
I walked over and helped her, put her walker onto the sidewalk, and I noticed that she had some groceries in her walker, but not a lot. I explained what we were doing and how we were handing out free food and her eyes almost softened, she was very relieved. I don’t think that she would’ve come up to us. I remember how she thanked me and I can only describe what it meant to watch her.
Onward
Fridge Fridays is still growing. Harrison and Joie attend the Student Food Recovery Task Force, co-sponsored by Grassroots Grocery, picking up plenty of ideas about rescuing food from the school cafeteria from other students dedicated to the cause
They are looking for a way to finance their own fridge… maybe a small one right now.
It will be cool to see how Fridge Fridays grows. Along with the amazing, city-wide, ground-up student food recovery movement!
The Grassroots Grocery Produce Parties: “It felt like a big family.”
Joie: I think what Grassroots Grocery does is amazing. The produce parties and being able to get surplus food from the Hunts Point Market. They are a lot of fun, too. At first I was like, okay, I'm going to go and, you know, contribute. But there are a bunch of kids my age and I got to talk to them. Dan was talking to everyone, like a big family.