​(DCF) is a mutual aid group that believes in free food for all. A community fridge is a literal fridge, like the one in your kitchen, with food free for the taking. We strive to redistribute food waste, and provide access to fresh food for all members of our community.

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What is Mutual Aid? A voluntary, reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. Not to be mistaken for charity, mutual aid is the horizontal movement of resources in a community as opposed to the wealthy giving to the needy. We are a support system for one another. We take care of each other.

 DCF’s core values 

• Compassion
• Justice
• Solidarity
• Accessibility
• Joy
• Reciprocity
• Abolition
• Community-driven care

Our Goals:

• Eliminate food waste
• Respond to needs of community members
• Ensure access to all who want to use it - no questions asked
• Growth minded - we want this fridge to be part of an entire ecosystem of accessible, free food

Our Vision: We envision a sustainable and effective solution to eliminating food waste, addressing the needs of our community, and putting a spare refrigerator to use. The fridge will reside in a secure, outdoor location with a shelter for its protection, and remain open at any time of day for anyone who chooses to use it. A business will generously host the fridge and sponsor its electricity consumption. A group of volunteers will maintain its cleanliness and order—once per day—and do whatever is reasonable to ensure the fridge remains stocked with healthy, safe, and desirable foods. To do that, we will interrupt the waste stream in various food establishments, e.g. distributors, farms, food retailers, and restaurants which we have or will build connections with. We see the Durham Community Fridge as a place where many people engage with one another in order to satisfy our common needs of food, health, pleasure, and connection, strengthening our networks of mutual aid and community-wide resilience!

How the project began: Before moving to Durham, one member of the group was involved in Miami’s community fridge network; another spent time working in Durham restaurants and bore witness to food waste; while a third member had purchased a new fridge for their home and wanted to donate their old one. The group coalesced around that refrigerator with the objective of finding it a home base. Our mutual aid initiative was created by 9 community members who came together around a shared mission to feed our community.​

What We Believe: ​We operate with the principle of solidarity, not charity. We believe that charity/non-profit orgs tend to operate within a capitalist structure where only certain people “qualify” or “deserve” to have their basic human needs fulfilled. This can contribute to the very system that mutual aid works to dismantle. We believe that things like food, housing, healthcare, and supplies are a basic human right that everyone deserves, regardless of class, race, or wealth.

Our goal is to provide these things for our communities and neighbors, not for any expectation of praise, but because that is how communities collectively care for one another. In order for our values to align with the actions of this group, we have ongoing conversations, look inward and ask ourselves how to best show up for the collective. As a group, we’ve tackled many hurdles that have come up by reminding ourselves of those values. Hurdles like law enforcement involvement, surveillance, accessibility, and how we speak about this project in general.

​We are committed to solving problems without working alongside cops, surveilling any spaces, or concerning ourselves with where the food goes once it’s stocked in the fridge(s). We believe that the fridges are their own entity for all to use and we know that whatever happens to the food after it’s put in the fridges is out of our control and not for us to govern. It’s important that we partner with volunteers, businesses, and organizations that align with these values. We are a group of community members with shared beliefs.