By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Residents of Bromont can now access fresh fruit and vegetables for free when they need them, thanks to a free food fridge installed outside the Lucien-Parent Community Centre in Adamsville.

The fridge, known as the Frigo Partage, was formally plugged in late last week. It is accessible 24 hours a day for the moment, although it will be moved inside the community centre when the weather turns.

Councillor Jocelyne Corbeil, the town councillor for the borough, spearheaded the project in collaboration with the Centre Marguerite-Dubois. The refrigerator itself was donated by a concerned citizen. Volunteers from the centre, which has existing agreements with supermarkets and local farmers to supply surplus food, will keep the fridge stocked, Corbeil explained. She emphasized that the fridge is open to all residents of Bromont, not just those who live in Adamsville.

“The way I see it is, we live in a world where there’s a lot of abundance, at least for a certain number of people,” said Corbeil, a longtime public school teacher who kept cereal boxes and snacks around for students who didn’t get enough to eat at home. “I’d like for everybody – especially those who need a little help, who are juggling with tighter budgets, who sometimes have to make very difficult choices between feeding themselves and paying for something else – to have access to food. Yes, Bromont is rich, but not everyone here is rich.”

The Adamsville food fridge is the latest in a growing, informal network of free food fridges across Brome-Missisquoi and the province. In the last several years, community groups, volunteer action centres and town administrators in Brome Lake, Brigham, Cowansville, Frelighsburg and Sutton have put in place fridges of their own. In some communities, including Cowansville and Brome Lake, the food is supplied by volunteer action centres and local farmers; in others, citizens can drop off surplus fresh food.

“Every Tuesday, from June to October, a member of the advisory committee or I come to collect surpluses from the Cowansville [volunteer action centre] to deposit them in our fridge, located outside, at Paul-Goodhue Park (behind the Community Daycare Service). The fridge is also supplied by citizens who occasionally add fresh food from their gardens and is accessible 24 hours a day,” Frelighsburg mayor Lucie Dagenais told the BCN in a brief email exchange.

According to the Quebec City-based organization Sauve ta Bouffe, which provides advice to organizations across the province that want to set up food fridges, Quebec “good Samaritan” legislation protects fridges and the volunteers and organizations that run them from liability. For safety reasons, Sauve ta Bouffe’s guidelines discourage putting meat, fish or restaurant leftovers in a shared fridge.

Serena Shufelt is the coordinator of the Frigo Vert in Brigham, which has been in place for about a year. The fridge stocks food supplied by the Centre Marguerite-Dubois, which gets its own supplies from local farmers and grocery store surpluses. “A lot of people are enjoying the fridge and emailing me and asking if there’s anything left,” said Shufelt, a farmer who responded to a call for volunteers from the municipality to monitor the fridge. “The purpose of the fridge being there is to prevent food waste, but if we are helping people [who are struggling to put food on the table] then that’s awesome.”

The town of Brome Lake established a food fridge of its own at the community centre last year as part of its food waste prevention efforts, said Brome Lake family resource agent Claire Citeau, who maintains the fridge along with a core group of three dedicated volunteers. Most of the food comes from the Centre Marguerite-Dubois and from a local bakery. “It’s a lot of work – you need to go pick up the food in Cowansville, stock the fridge, clean it…  if I didn’t have the volunteers, I could do it on my own but it would be very hard.”

Citeau said she finds that the fridge is emptying more quickly now than it did earlier on in the project. She doesn’t know if this is due to people taking more than their share, to the project being better known or to people in need relying on the fridge to put food on the table. “I like to think that it’s just become better known…but certainly, unfortunately, there are people in need. This is a waste reduction [project] but it’s also about food security.”

“In a few years, I’d like for there to be no need for a food fridge – I’d like for everyone to get enough to eat, but that’s living in unicorn land,” said Corbeil, the former teacher turned Bromont councillor and food fridge booster. “In reality, it would be nice if there were two fridges, or if there was a community that developed around the fridges and people there came up with other projects to help the community.”

To get involved with an existing food fridge or to establish a new one, contact your local volunteer action centre or your municipality. To find a fridge near you, visit sauvetabouffe.org and click “Frigos.”