Welcome back to The Spark, our monthly celebration of how people just like you are creating positive change, one meaningful step at a time. The Spark is generously supported by Laura Rice. Sign up to Reasons to be Cheerful’s weekly newsletter here and you’ll get The Spark in your inbox at the start of each month. In this issue Why fully stocked fridges are popping up on city sidewalks Want to cook a lasagna for a total stranger? Kitchen for all! “Food should be free” Take a walk around Baltimore, and you might come across a fridge in the wild. From the unassuming black mini-fridge in front of a barber shop in Park Heights, to the large, elaborately painted burgundy construction run by a community garden in Curtis Bay, community fridges come in all shapes and sizes. But all serve the same purpose: helping neighbors feed neighbors in the most straightforward way possible. Community fridges and pantries, where anyone can freely take or donate food, proliferated during the pandemic across the U.S., with large networks in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and New York.  Members of the Bmore Community Fridge Network. Credit: Bmore Community Fridge Network But while a handful of them have sprouted in Baltimore in recent years, their locations were not well-publicized, says Liz Miller, a local public school arts teacher. “You just had to know somebody who knew where it was and they could show you.” But the idea held promise, so Miller decided to turn the ad-hoc initiatives into a coordinated effort. “I was like, ‘We can do better.’”  There were four community fridges in Baltimore in February 2025, when Miller launched the Bmore Community Fridge Network (BCFN) with three other local women. Today, the network includes over 20 fridges and more than 10,000 volunteers who coordinate via Facebook. The help is clearly needed — fully stocked fridges are often empty a couple hours later. “Food insecurity looks a lot of different ways,” says Miller. “It might be a single mother. It might be somebody who’s unhoused. It might be somebody with huge medical bills.” Twenty-eight percent of Baltimore residents had limited or uncertain access to adequate food in 2024 according to a survey by Johns Hopkins University. Often, people are employed and doing their best, but can’t quite make ends meet due to rising costs and stagnating wages, Miller points out. Some 40 percent of food-insecure people in Maryland earn too much to qualify for government assistance, and across the U.S. more than half of food-insecure households include at least one person with a full-time job.  A community fridge in Baltimore. Credit: Bmore Community Fridge Network With their inherent flexibility — come by whenever, take what looks good, no questions asked — community fridges help fill the gaps left by food banks and other charities. BCFN relies entirely on volunteers and donations, with people contributing old fridges, building materials and carpentry skills, floorspace and electricity, ingredients and food.  These days, Miller devotes around 30 volunteer hours per week to BCFN, and has streamlined a lot of the work — there’s a regularly updated fridge map, online forms for volunteers and sponsors, FAQs and Facebook groups. “It’s really not that hard to find fridges,” she says. “Everybody’s trying to get rid of one.” The real challenge is finding places to put them. When people volunteer to host a fridge on their private property or in front of their business, Miller inspects the site to see if it’s a good fit. “I check it out, I share my concerns, I take a picture and measurements, I sketch on top of the picture to figure out what size the structure could be.” Then volunteers build a shelter for the fridge with the help of a local carpenter to protect the fridge from the elements and provide additional shelving for nonperishables, like packaged and canned goods. Miller is currently gathering all their blueprints and measurements into a shareable document. “It’ll be made free to anybody who wants it, because this should not be gatekept. Food should be free.” Once the fridge is set up and plugged in, its location is added to the map and announced in the Facebook group Feeding Baltimore, which is moderated by one of BCFN’s co-founders.  Weighed down by negative news? Our smart, bright, weekly newsletter is the uplift you’ve been looking for. [contact-form-7] While some volunteers drop off the odd meal or bag of groceries on the go, others contribute hundreds of meals each week. Local nonprofits like Leftover Love and FutureThinkHub also help stock fridges with fresh leftovers from local restaurants and businesses. BCFN requires volunteers to clearly label the food they contribute, including the date it was made      and any allergens it might contain. Undated or expired food gets removed, as do items that could be unhygienic, like open condiments. “We want there to be a lot of dignity in this work. We want people to come to this fridge not to just see trash in there,” says Miller, pointing out that those who are not comfortable taking prepared meals can stick to the sealed groceries. Today, the Bmore Community Fridge Network includes over 20 fridges and more than 10,000 volunteers. Credit: Bmore Community Fridge Network The network is growing fast, says Miller, and new volunteers join every day. “People need hope. They need somewhere to put this nervous energy and this fear about the state of things. This is a very tangible thing you can do where you just cook for a neighbor that you might never meet.” Find more information about the Bmore Community Fridge Network here, or head over to Freedge.org to find a global map of community fridges and resources to start your own.  Pass the lasagna In March 2020, Rhiannon Menn was looking for ways to entertain her three-year-old daughter and support her community during the Covid lockdown. On a whim, she posted online in her local moms’ group offering to drop off a lasagna for anyone nearby. Requests soon arrived from a number of local families. A couple weeks in, other moms started offering to cook, and the idea spread across the country on social media. By May, Menn realized it was time to make things official, and Lasagna Love was born.  The idea is simple. Lasagna Love takes volunteers who want to make lasagna and connects them with people nearby who want one, no questions asked. By not making it specifically about food insecurity, the platform helps destigmatize donated food, refashioning it as a neighborly thing to do. Wait, you're not a member yet? Join the Reasons to be Cheerful community by supporting our nonprofit publication and giving what you can. Join Cancel anytime Lasagna Love has over 80,000 volunteers across the U.S. and has served over two million people. While there’s an “official” lasagna recipe on the website, as well as food safety and allergy information, many volunteers use their own family recipes, and some offer gluten-free, vegan and allergy-friendly options.  Learn more about Lasagna Love here. A serving of solidarity In cities across Germany, KüFas (short for Küche für alle, or “kitchen for all”) serve free or donation-based meals on a regular schedule, usually sticking to a vegan or vegetarian menu and often using rescued ingredients. Originating with European squatters in the early 1980s, they’re a fixture of the left-leaning political scene, usually taking place in squats, progressive youth centers and politically minded bars or cafés. Also referred to as Voküs, they were created as a secular alternative to soup kitchens, replacing charity with solidarity. They attract a broad spectrum of fans: students, families, unhoused people and neighbors all come for a nice meal, often pitching in with the cooking or cleaning.  Find a KüFa cookbook and tips for starting your own (in German) here. The post The Spark: Building Community One Meal at a Time appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.