Community fridges an oasis in Memphis food deserts
L.J. Abraham started 901 Community Fridges in 2021. Today, there are five outdoor fridges and an independent fridge covered by the group’s volunteers. (Jane Roberts/The Daily Memphian)
L.J. Abraham was thinking of the food deserts in Memphis when she posted on Facebook to ask friends if they would help her create a community refrigerator.
Four years later, 901 Community Fridges is exactly what it sounds like: an outdoor refrigerator open day or night, when feeding lines are closed or nothing’s open, to find home-cooked meals and perishables such as fruit or milk.
What Abraham didn’t expect was the level of community that would form around a solitary refrigerator left chugging away in the elements.
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Jane Roberts
Jane Roberts has reported in Memphis for more than 20 years. As a senior member of The Daily Memphian staff, she was assigned to the medical beat during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also has done in-depth work on other medical issues facing our community, including shortages of specialists in local hospitals. She covered K-12 education here for years and later the region’s transportation sector, including Memphis International Airport and FedEx Corp.
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