As we reflect on 2023 and prepare for 2024, we have a lot to be thankful for….
Published on December 22, 2023 by Germantown Fridge
A look-back at 2023.
2023 was an incredible year for the Germantown Community Fridges. We transitioned our finances to Open Collective in April allowing our team to better manage funds, apply for grants and offer tax-deductible donation receipts to our generous supporters.
We raised a whopping $22,000 - all from individual donors in our community! A huge chunk of this money was spent to fill the fridges with groceries: ~225 times at $80 each. In addition, we are doing 14 extra shops this week leading up to Christmas and reimbursing $80 for each of them as well!
Also in 2023, we started our community cooking initiative, gathering once a month at FUMCOG to prepare ready-to-eat meals for our neighbors. This effort was initially sponsored by a generous grant of $1800 from FUMCOG members and later by general funds raised from individual donors. We hosted 10 cooking events this past year, preparing on average 90 ready-to-eat meals, and we hope to increase these numbers in 2024.
Other notable initiatives of 2023 included:
- Securing a permanent weekly trash pickup for our High St. location from our friends at DePaul.
- Purchasing a replacement fridge for High St. when the old one broke down in the middle of the summer.
- Organizing an Easter event where we gave away 100 dozen of eggs to community members.
- Running a successful t-shirt sale initiative, raising over $1000.
- Partnering with countless organizations to do a pantry drive for the fridges.
We continued fostering valuable partnerships with local businesses and nonprofits. With their help, we diverted hundreds of thousands of pounds of food from landfills to community members in need. These organizations and businesses include (but are certainly not limited to) NWMAC, Philly Food Rescue, Jackie's Garden, Bredenbecks, Merzbachers, Weaver’s Way, Crust Bakery, High Point Café, Double Trellis, Sharing Excess, Food Connect, Le Bus, Philly Food Works, Workers Rev Collective, Germantown Kitchen Garden and Taproot Farms. We receive generous in-kind donations from them weekly to fill our fridges for the community!
We also regularly receive emails and messages from various groups, organizations and individuals asking us how they can help our mission, and we couldn't be more grateful for the abundance of care and love that exists in our community!
2023 Challenges.
Our challenges were few and we were blessed to have the support of the community to overcome every single one of them:
- A few weeks ago, someone smashed the glass in our High st pantry. The community immediately jumped into action by donating funds and even offering us a free fridge to replace the broken one. Our team was able to temporarily repair the broken glass, and the pantry was back in action within a couple of days.
- We continued to struggle with trying to maintain reasonable fridge temperatures during the summer heatwaves. This is a continued issue for us since the fridges are in constant use and the doors stay open for extended periods of time. Luckily, the food almost never lingers and doesn't have time to go bad.
- We had a challenge with trash pickups at High st - unfortunately, the folks who were doing it for free were no longer able to do so after September. Anyone who comes by the fridges, knows that our trash cans fill up within mere hours and can start to look untidy very quickly if not cleaned up daily. We have since been able to start paying that same group, DePaul, for trash pickups several times a week. They do a fantastic job, and we are happy to support their non-profit mission as well.
Looking ahead to 2024.
We are excited for 2024 and everything it has in store for us!
Early in the new year, we plan on replacing both of our fridges with two new ones generously donated by Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church of Germantown. The fridges will be painted by a local artist before installation. During the fridge swaps, we plan on doing some small repairs and paint touch ups on the sheds that house our fridges. After three years of continuous use, they both need a little TLC.
We also plan on replacing the High St. pantry with a newer model of the same cooler generously donated by a local business. This pantry will have the ability to cool in hot summer months similar to the Armat St. one.
We are looking forward to hosting a community giveaway on MLK Day at our High St. location, giving out hot beverages, pastries and sandwiches. It's a great way to meet the folks we are serving.
This year, we are also hoping to bring back our major Fall giveaway to celebrate the anniversary of our first fridge. We hosted this event in 2021 and 2022 and both were a huge success. Typically, we use raised funds to purchase food and toiletries for the giveaway; while local businesses, schools and other organizations donate a wide variety of items that are also distributed. In years past, we've been able to serve hundreds of local residents during these events and we hope to match or even grow this effort in 2024.
We plan to continue growing our cooking initiative, meeting at least once a month to prepare delicious and nutritious meals for the community.
We are also gearing up to launch a new (for us) communications platform, Geneva, to streamline volunteer communications and donation pickups. Our core team has been testing the platform over the last couple of weeks and we are very excited to roll it out to the general public early in the new year.
We look forward to continuing to foster meaningful relationships with local businesses, non-profits, churches and individual community members. The amount of support we receive from hundreds (if not thousands) of people throughout the year is truly astounding, and we cannot wait to see what the new year brings! None of this, of course, would be possible without you - our generous supporters. We are so, so grateful for your dedication to ensuring folks in our community have daily access to food!
We wish you all a very happy holiday season and a fantastic new year!
Sincerely,
Germantown Community Fridge team