Community fridges, pantries in Scarborough aim to decrease food insecurity

Sitra Suleiman noticed a need in her community, and wanted to do something about it.

The Scarborough resident recently launched Community Food Hub, which aimsto decrease food insecurity and avoidable food waste by setting up outdoor community fridges and pantries across the city.

"It's a 'Take what you need, leave what you can' model," Suleiman explains.

Suleiman saidshe hasalways been passionate about helping others and being involved in her community. After seeing a rise in food insecurity, she said it was important to her to help address it.

"This is accessible24/7 for anyone in the community to use," she said.

A customized shed painted by a local artist houses a fridge on one side and a pantry on the other. Inside the doors are donation guidelines and a placeto write suggestions for items to drop off.

There are currently two locations, one at the Malvern Resource Centre and the other at Progress Church, which just opened last month. Her food pantry isone example of action through the Power of Us Campaign launched with the 2023Toronto's Vital Signs reportthat shows that neighborhood activities, community civic action and volunteerism are down.

"We can tell based on when we stock the fridge and pantry that in the next day or two the items are gone, so that shows us there is a need," she said.

WATCH | Scarborough woman takes action after seeing food insecurity in her community:

Community fridges and pantries in Scarborough aim to decrease food insecurity

10 months ago

Duration 2:22

As food insecurity and the cost of living continues to rise, some community members are taking matters into their own hands.One woman in Scarborough took note of the needs in her own neighbourhood, and worked with a non profit to bring her idea of a community fridge and pantry to life.

Suleiman saidit was also important to help people access culturally appropriate food in a dignified way.

"There's no registration, you don't need to talk to us in order to use it, you can just go at anytime."

The initiative relies on volunteers to help maintain the fridges as well ascommunity donations, and her hope is the project continues to grow.

Community Food Hub supported by local non-profit

East Scarborough Storefront, a resource centre,helped bring Community Food Hub to life. Laura Hammond, the organization's grassroots leadership strategies manager saysas soon asSuleiman pitched the concept to them, they started doing outreach for her.

"People like Sitra are very capable of bringing solutions to their community, and what we do really well at Storefront is help to leverage opportunities for residents by enhancing the solutions they're bringing," Hammond said.

"By amplifying her voice on what she wanted to do, we got the community behind her and also supported her withresources."

The organization is passionate about helping people bring solutions to their own community.
It also houses many other grassroots initiatives including providing people in the area with homemade hot meals through a pick up window and delivery.

"It's important because of the dignified way to access the food," saidKrystyne Gunnis,community projects specialist at East Scarborough Storefront.

"There is a lot of stigma around accessing food banks and food support, and here we try our best to remove those stigmas. Our meals are being prepared by your neighbour, with familiar ingredients," she explained.

East Scarborough Storefront is reaching out to the community for more donations.The organizationsays it'sdoubled the number of days they prepare and hand out meals since last year, and they're still forced to turn people away.

"We see the need and it's not sustainable for just grassroots to be doing this work," Gunnis said.

Suleiman hopes to see more support to help her initiative spread furthertoo.

"To see itphysically built and open to the public is exciting," she said.

"I want to see more fridges, more opportunities for partnerships and food drives,and also empowerpeople to have this in their local community as well."

For more information on our Sounds of the Season holiday campaign in support of GTA food banks and to learn more about our Friday, December 8 programming day at the CBC Toronto Broadcast Centre, visit cbc.ca/sots.