‘The Giving Fridge’ feeds food insecure, helps area restaurants – WCAX

‘The Giving Fridge’ feeds food insecure, helps area restaurants – WCAX

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. (WCAX) – When Bethanie Farrell and her husband moved to the Battell Block building in Middlebury last year, she noticed a lot of empty storefronts.

“At first I thought I’d just approach the building about decorating the windows,’ Farrell says.

But with COVID holding strong, Farrell figured maybe it would be better to give people an escape from their house, using plants in one of those empty shops.

“The idea was for them to be able to come in and book 15 minutes at a time and be surrounded by plants and get a little break from their isolation,” she says.

While Farrell says both Nedde Real Estate, who owns the building, and Full Effect LLC property management were both on board, the second wave of COVID came shortly after.

After deciding it would be safer not to, Farrell did a little more research about her community, and found that according to a UVM study, one in four Vermonters face food insecurity.

“And that was just a really troubling number and there happened to be an empty refrigerator in this space. And paired with the food insecurity, a lot of the local restaurants are really struggling because they haven’t been able to operate at full capacity,” she says.

So, she combined her love of plants, her desire to help restaurants, and the need for food resources, to create The Giving Fridge.

“Anyone in need for any reason is able to come and pick up a meal. You can reserve a meal for yourself, your family, a neighbor. You can also reserve it for someone else that you care about and come pick it up to deliver to them,” she says.

The fridge is stocked with meals and products from local restaurants, funded by donations, or by plant sales. The plants are from AgWay in Middlebury.

That money is then given back to restaurants, and in exchange, the fridge is filled with food.

Some of the restaurants participating include American Flatbread Middlebury, The Arcadian, Bobcat Cafe, The Middlebury Natural Foods co-op, Park Squeeze, Two Brothers Tavern, Sabai Sabai, Braided Loaf Bakery, Scuttleship Farm, Orb Weaver Creamery, Vermont Tortilla Co., and Ridgeline Apiaries.

Property management is happy because an otherwise vacant space is going to use, and for a cause that Virgina Quesnel once leaned on.

“So it really made my soul happy to be able to have built my life back to where I can be someone giving back and paying forward from what was given to me,” says Quesnel.

“COVID and this last year has been tough on everybody so, any little bit, and we know first hand how tough it has been, any little bit that we can try to give back to our community, help the ones in need, that’s what we’re trying to do,” says her brother, and Full Effect LLC owner, Richard Quesnel.

Food pick up is on Sunday and Monday, from 2 to 4 p.m., and will run for as long as the donations allow, and the space is empty.

“I’m hoping to find funding or a grant to be able to pay rent so we can stay here. Because the feedback I’ve gotten from most of the community is they hope we can be here permanently. So, we’ll see,” says Farrell.

While The Giving Fridge started with a goal of 250 meals between Christmas and New Years Eve, that goal has now grown to 1,000 meals by the end of January.

When we spoke with Bethanie this week, she said they were on track to hit 800 by the end of the week.

Since December 23rd, they’ve put nearly $8,000 back in the local food economy.

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Published at Sun, 24 Jan 2021 14:32:00 +0000