Thank you for making June a month truly filled with abundance. And we had a lot happen, so let’s get into some awesome updates!

Because of your generosity, we were able to reimburse 17 fridge fills in the month of June! Our volunteers fill between one and four fridges per reimbursement, in addition to the food donated by our community members. We also receive large food donations from grocery partners like Grocery Outlet of Quartermaster Plaza, along with our friends at Share Food Program, Sharing Excess, Food Connect, and NW Mutual Aid. 

Combined, this meant we had 96 fridge fills across all five locations. Community Bar was filled 24 days out of the month; Bok was filled 21 days; Fridges & Family was filled 19 days; Smith Playground was filled 19 days and Mifflin Square was filled 13 days. 

In the month of April, we received $1,675 in donations, including proceeds from the sale of merchandise. We spent $1,849. Of our expenditures, $1,540  was spent on directly feeding our neighbors through reimbursed fridge fills, $152 was spent on merchandise, and $155 was spent on food for our volunteer party at Smith Playground. 

Besides our amazing donors and monthly supporters, we also were excited to receive funds from local businesses, including Batter & Crumbs, as well as continued support from our friends at Society Hill Synagogue, who weekly stock our Point Breeze location. And you can now find our awesome tote bags at one of our favorite vendors: South Street Art Mart!

One of our fridge volunteers opened up a neighborhood pantry in Point Breeze on Cleveland St. and after the community pantry at Hive Cafe had to be removed due to neighbor complaints, we were able to re-locate a new pantry to DiSilvestro Playground on Castle Ave. Starting in July, these are officially our sixth and seventh locations! 

Many of you saw that at the very end of June, the Bok cold fridge was stolen in the middle of the night. We’re so happy to announce that we were able to replace the fridge almost immediately, thanks in large part to this community and your support. You can read more about it in this Philadelphia Inquirer article (click here) and to re-share a quote from one of our volunteers about the situation: “When you see a situation where you see people so economically insecure that they are stealing a community fridge to sell for scrap metal ... we have to ask why are these things happening and what can we do to improve these communities,” Jayne said. “We strongly believe that the community people live in is everyone’s responsibility.”

We are responsible for each other. We take care of each other. Mutual aid is the past, present and the future. Mutual aid is for everyone.

We’ll see ya around the block, South Philly!