Is there a limit to how often I can visit Hope Fridge or how much I can take with me?

Nope! Anyone can visit Hope Fridge and take whatever will help them or their friends and family at any time. Take what you need, leave what you can, and please leave Hope Fridge cleaner than you found it.

How can we help keep Hope Fridge clean?

We made a short video to show you how! Please click here to watch.

What other resources are out there to help me if Hope Fridge is empty when I visit and I still need help with food?

If you are experiencing an emergency, please call 911.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health emergency, please call 988.

The FoodFinder app is a helpful way to find local food pantries in your area. Download the app, input your zip code, and a map of local food pantries, as well as their hours, addresses, phone numbers, and websites will appear.

Please also call 211 to reach the kind folks at United Way. A helpful receptionist will help connect you with the available local resources best fit to your unique situation, including food, housing, WIC, food stamps, mental health care, etc… 

What is mutual aid?

According to “Mutual Aid, Building Solidarity During This Crisis (And The Next)” by Dean Spade, "mutual aid is the radical act of caring for each other while working to change the world. Mutual aid is collective coordination to meet each other’s needs, usually from an awareness that the systems we have in place are not going to meet them. Those systems, in fact, have often created the crisis, or are making things worse. There is nothing new about mutual aid - people have worked together to survive for all of human history. Mutual aid projects expose the reality that people do not have what they need and propose that we address this injustice together.”

As a mutual aid project, Hope Fridge will aim to feed people, yes, but also to mobilize people, to expand solidarity, unity, and community, to ever-expand our commitment to justice when faced with the complex realities of injustice, to uplift marginalized communities, and to continue to help build and sustain social movements for systemic change.

What is a community fridge?

A community fridge is a form of mutual aid that provides fresh food and hygiene products to anyone in need at any time with no questions asked. A community fridge is an emergency service run by the community, for the community. A community fridge is not a charity.

A community fridge has no paid staff/employees and we have no paid volunteers. Everyone works together to ensure that a community fridge is kept safe, clean, and full of fresh food and hygiene supplies as much as possible.

A community fridge helps improve food security for our neighbors while reducing food waste.

Everyone is welcome to help keep our fridges safe and full!

Is Hope Fridge a food pantry?

Hope Fridge is not a food pantry. Hope Fridge is a mutual aid group.

Hope Fridge is a collection of community volunteers doing our best to ensure fresh and delicious food and new personal hygiene supplies are available for free to anyone who needs them any time of day without any invasive personal questions, limits, or restrictions.

This means Hope Fridge’s locations may be full of food one minute and completely empty the next.

Hope Fridge is always in need of fresh donated food and hygiene supplies that fit our donation guidelines, found here: hopefridge.com/guidelines.

Take what you need, and leave what you can!

Why doesn’t Hope Fridge accept donations of expired food?

Hope Fridge doesn’t accept expired food for safety reasons, but also because we know how it feels to be handed expired food when we’re struggling - not good.

It’s okay to make the decision for yourself to eat your own expired food, but when expired food is all you have available to eat and someone gave it to you intentionally, it can easily perceived as “this expired food is all you’re worth.”

That’s not true, but it can sting all the same.

People in need deserve fresh, delicious, and unexpired food!

Please donate food to Hope Fridge before it expires to help us reduce food waste, to treat our recipients with dignity and respect, and to save our volunteers the time spent disposing of expired food. Thank you!

Why doesn’t Hope Fridge partner with religious organizations?

There is a dire need in our Fox Valley community to provide direct mutual aid, free food, and household goods to folks via a group without any ties to churches or religious organizations. Many folks have lost trust in organized religion, and we don’t want those people to continue falling through the cracks.

There is a well-documented history of many LGBTQ+ folks not being welcome in or feeling comfortable in church settings because they can’t reliably predict if a particular church will see and respect their humanity or not.

Throughout history and into today, many religious organizations have treated LGBTQ+ people as folks in need of “conversion” away from their truest selves, instead of celebrating them as already complete human beings.

Hope Fridge will always welcome and feed everyone who needs our help, regardless of their religion or any other characteristics. What we will not do is locate a Hope Fridge at a church or religious institution.

In short, we are completely free of any religious affiliations for those who crave that option and haven’t been able to find it elsewhere.

Is Hope Fridge a 501(c)3 organization?

Essentially, yes! Allow us to explain:

Hope Fridge functions as a 501(c)3 organization thanks to our fiscal host, Open Collective Foundation. This means all donations to Hope Fridge are 501(c)3 tax deductible, but all checks or grants written to Hope Fridge must be written to “Open Collective Foundation” with “Hope Fridge” in the memo line.

More info for donating checks to Hope Fridge can be found here: https://docs.opencollective.foundation/how-it-works/financial-contributions/checks

Open Collective Foundation is like our bank account, but they’re way better than a bank - they allow Hope Fridge to mange our finances publicly so everyone can see where our money comes from and how it's spent.

Donate to Hope Fridge via credit or debit card, check out or join our list of donors, and/or review our finances here: opencollective.com/hope-fridge.

Why does Hope Fridge no longer accept donations of cans that are not pop-top?

TLDR version? People in need aren’t asking for cans.

Cans also presume that the recipient has a can opener to access the food, access to a kitchen to prepare the food, and the free time available to prepare the food. 

Cans don’t move fast at our locations and we have VERY limited space. Cans are heavy and they can cause injury to a visitor if someone tries to lift a tote full of cans from one of our pantry shelves. 

Canned foods are lacking in nutrients and flavor when compared to fresh and ready-to-eat foods. People in need deserve food that makes them feel good about being alive. Hope Fridge aims to change the culture of giving in America away from the simplicity and affordability of cans, to instead closely considering the recipient’s experience as well as their actual wishes and needs.

When you’re providing food to a family member or close friend who is in need of some help, would you drop off a collection of various cans to their front door, or would you drop off a ready-to-eat casserole or other ready-to-eat meal instead?

Let’s treat people in need in our communities with the same dignity and respect we show our loved ones by listening to what they are telling us they need, and providing those items to the best of our ability. 

If you visit Hope Fridge and encounter a large number of donated cans, please contact Oshkosh Area Community Pantry (OACP) at (920) 651-9960 and let them know at what location the cans are located, and ask them to please pick up the cans. OACP has kindly offered to pick-up excess cans donated to Hope Fridge to give away at their indoor food pantry. 

Why do Hope Fridge volunteers throw away expired food, opened containers, and unlabeled containers of food?

All people deserve healthy, safe, fresh, and non-expired food.