Waste not, want not: Joannes Park's community fridge feeds those in need, reduces waste

GREEN BAY - On a stroll in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, for a leadership conference, the last thing Alyssa Proffitt thought she'd see on the streets was a mini-fridge.

With a sunflower painted on its door and the message, "Take what you need, leave what you can," it didn't look like your typical dorm room appliance.

The pandemic was in full swing, and many families were newly struggling on single household incomes, as businesses paused operations or shuttered completely. Grocery prices soared with surging inflation, but salaries didn't budge. Proffitt, the former co-president of the Joannes Park Neighborhood Association on Green Bay's east side, found herself struggling to provide for her two toddlers, despite having a well-paying health care job.

"We were barely able to make certain ends meet, so when we looked at everyone else in the community, how was everyone else able to sustain themselves when we're seeing this rising cost?" Proffitt said. "That was one of the things we started seeing across communities: If I can't make it, how can anybody else?"

The message on the refrigerator stayed with Proffitt all the way back to Green Bay. Proffitt and Neighborhood Association president Kelsey Lutzow had been talking for months about the possibility of establishing a community refrigerator, especially because Joannes Park is considered a food desert.

Lutzow observed far too many people walking by her house with Walgreens and Family Dollar grocery bags, the only retailers within walking distance. For families in Joannes Park area without a car, the closest grocery store with a robust selection of food items — Webster Avenue Market — was a 20- to 30-minute walk from the Joannes Park neighborhood boundaries. There were no bus lines.

"It just breaks my heart, because you cannot get well-balanced meals from those places if they don't really have produce, right?" Lutzow said. "If I'm out of milk, I'll just walk down to the Walgreens. But it's probably 50/50 if there's even going to be milk there."

In May, the neighborhood welcomed a new, more equitable option.

Nestled in front of the Green Bay Community Police Center, 315 S. Baird St., it's known as The Fridge and it's the only community refrigerator of its kind in Brown County. Anybody is welcome, no matter the time, to peruse the day's offerings — fresh carrots, cabbage and strawberries one day; maybe broccoli, lettuce and apples another day. The goal, Proffitt said, is to respond to food insecurity and eliminate food waste.

"Why are we throwing away nearly 40% of what's produced in all of America? Why is that ending up in the trash when people right here in Brown County are struggling to afford basic needs? How can we bridge that gap?" Proffitt said.

That 40% of food in the United States costs more than $408 billion per year, according to Feeding America, and is the equivalent of 130 billion meals. And according to a recent survey by Food Wise, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension project, 77% of households in Brown County struggled with food insecurity in 2022.

Nearly 35% of the food generated at grocery retailers also ends up in landfills and incinerators across the United States, which is why Proffitt and Lutzow partnered with local retailers Fresh Thyme and Target.

Already, donating food items to The Fridge has greatly reduced waste at Fresh Thyme, said Fresh Thyme store director Rich Kostecki.

"Anything Fresh Thyme donates would have ended up in our compactor, which has reduced the amount of product going into the landfill and reducing the pick-ups that we get per month," Kostecki said. "That is a big savings to us."

In addition to people in the community donating food when they can, The Fridge gets regularly stocked with fresh produce, dairy and meats from both stores, products that might otherwise be thrown away due to damages or overstock, Proffitt said. The food, beyond a dented yogurt container or sometimes being less-than-appealing in shape, is otherwise fine to eat.

"The Fridge gives people options. Sometimes as I'm filling up the fridge, kids will run up and say, 'Oh my gosh, I love apples!'" Lutzow said. "It's the most heartwarming thing."

Volunteers maintain The Fridge and help keep it running smoothly

Just beyond the Community Police Center and The Fridge, the skatepark serves as a mini oasis for skateboarders and BMX riders in the area. Jaime Howarth was already taking her daughter and her daughter's friend to the skatepark and arming them with sandwiches when The Fridge arrived.

"The other kids were so hungry down there that I started to bring a bunch of sandwiches," Howarth said. "The kids would eat them so fast, so I started preparing other meals too."

Since August, Howarth has been a volunteer of The Fridge, spending her Thursday mornings doing grocery runs to collect any overstock items from the area Target store. Some weeks Target doesn't have any excess food to donate, but other weeks, it donates so much food it's "overwhelming."

In those times of abundance, Howarth scores armloads of frozen chicken, yogurt, frozen ravioli, an assortment of nuts and, one time, more ice cream than she knew what to do with.

"I love cooking and always cook for people," said Howarth, who works as a line cook at Olive Garden. "I always figure if you can make a lot more food for the same amount, that can feed a lot of people. I feed my kids a lot of good food, and a lot of kids don't really get steak dinners, you know?"

Good fridges make good neighbors

One of the stipulations of The Fridge is no raw meat, whether fresh or frozen. When it became clear to Proffitt and Lutzow that both grocery stores routinely donated meat, especially chicken, they had to get creative about using it. So, like a good neighbor, they looked to their community for support.

Amphora, a restaurant located in downtown Green Bay, offered up their commercial freezers to store the meat and, equally important, their kitchen to prepare foods. Prepared meals are then moved to The Fridge.

That's been particularly heartening for Kostecki, of Fresh Thyme, to witness. It isn't simply the giving of groceries, a generosity on its own, but preparing fully cooked meals can be a game changer for people who may not have the time, resources or bandwidth to cook themselves.

On any particular week, Proffitt may have to cook up a steak, a salmon or many, many pounds of chicken. But she has the help of people like Howarth, who are used to operating in an industrial-size kitchen.

Proffitt is also working with volunteers from Crisis Café, a Green Bay-based nonprofit focused on addressing food insecurity. The Current Young Professionals, individuals representing the Greater Green Bay Chamber, worked with the Crisis Cafe to prepare meals for The Fridge the week before Thanksgiving.

"So many different organizations are putting their hands in," Proffitt said. "It's what's helped keep The Fridge sustainable."

Paying it forward, community by community

The Fridge is one of only a handful of community fridges available around the state. When they were getting the project off the ground, Proffitt and Lutzow leaned on the expertise of volunteers who run the Hope Fridge in Neenah.

Hope Fridge, it turned out, was paying it forward. When volunteers of the Hope Fridge were starting out, they too took advice from the Love Fridge, a mutual aid initiative in Chicago with multiple locations.

When Proffitt and Lutzow first went to the Green Bay Police Department with the idea last fall, Community Police Lt. Steven Mahoney cautioned them to do as much research as they could before they went ahead with the proposal. Since they installed The Fridge, Mahoney has watched it fill and empty with water, fruits and vegetables in very short periods of time. That, he said, has been a big success.

Neighborhood morale seems also to have grown, said Community Police Lt. Erin Bloch of the Green Bay Police Department.

"You give somebody the opportunity to do something good for somebody else, and then there's people who are in need who can benefit from the water in The Fridge or the food in The Fridge or whatever they need," Bloch said. "They don't have to ask any questions and are able to take that food if they are in need. I think that's a great thing."

Proffitt and Lutzow have been talking to other neighborhoods about the possibility of setting up community fridges. It takes coordinated efforts like being on top of refrigerator temperatures, cleaning up and removing food items that don't meet The Fridge guidelines. Joannes Park, flanked by a middle school and high school, does attract some "feisty" kids sometimes, Proffitt said, which sometimes means one of the volunteers (in this case, Proffitt's husband) must clean up spilled mashed potatoes.

But mostly, kids get excited by the new offerings in the fridge and respect the efforts. Lutzow remembers the awe a 10-year-old expressed when she was stocking The Fridge with zucchini.

"He told me exactly how he would cook it, and I said, 'Well, take one,'" Lutzow said.

Proffitt and Lutzow don't see the work as a charity effort. It's about "people taking care of people," Lutzow said. It doesn't take much effort to make a big impact, whether that means cutting up a watermelon and distributing slices to eager kids at the skatepark or preparing trays of pasta for a single mother to take home for family dinner.

"I've had conversations with people who are interested in having a community fridge in their area, they're like, 'You have to tell me what all your secrets are.' And I'm like, 'There are no secrets.' Be nice to each other. Take care of each other. That's really the only secret," Lutzow said.

Natalie Eilbert covers mental health issues for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. She welcomes story tips and feedback. You can reach her at neilbert@gannett.com or view her Twitter profile at @natalie_eilbert. If you or someone you know is dealing with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text "Hopeline" to the National Crisis Text Line at 741-741.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay's only community fridge helps feed and give back