A community fridge program may be on the horizon in Doylestown.
Doylestown Borough Council Member Connor O’Hanlon will introduce a proposal for a community fridge program in the coming months.
“A community fridge program allows for people to have healthy options for the food that they can get from a distribution site,” O’Hanlon said. “A lot of time [in food pantries] there’s a lot of cans, and a lot of stuff with preservatives.”
O’Hanlon said his goal is to create a pilot community fridge program. To start, one refrigerator would be placed at a location in Doylestown Borough, O’Hanlon said, with a low cost that depends on implementation and decisions of maintenance. The initial purchase of the fridge would ideally be supported through fundraising.
Even though Doylestown is an affluent area, O’Hanlon said the need still exists.
“Food and housing insecurity are both things that exist here in Bucks County,” O’Hanlon said. “It’s a huge problem, even in areas where you don’t think about it.”
In Bucks, there are more than 56,600 people experiencing food insecurity, according to Feeding America. Doylestown’s Lindsay Troyer, founder of a local nonprofit addressing food insecurity, said levels of it differ based on regions within the county. Troyer said there’s some food insecurity in Lower Bucks, less in central Bucks, and more in Upper Bucks.
“Upper Bucks is distinctly different from the other two parts of Bucks County because it’s very rural, and this area has portions of it with very high rates of food insecurity,” Troyer said.
Troyer said community fridges originated as mutual aid efforts addressing the negative economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and proliferated in cities. Despite the end of the pandemic, Troyer said, most hunger relief programs have seen a similar or increased number of clients.
“Why [community fridges are] still prevalent, despite its origination being during the height of the pandemic, is because our numbers of hunger really haven’t gone down since the pandemic,” Troyer said.
O’Hanlon said his prospective program would be partially donation-based, but would receive a significant amount of help through investment from the town government for maintenance.
“The government having a hand in it would help with keeping it steady,” O’Hanlon said.
There are more than 30 community fridges in Philadelphia. O’Hanlon said community fridges have many benefits over food pantries like having more hours to access food and not needing volunteers to distribute it. However, O’Hanlon said the fridge would be monitored, likely by a combination of the parks & recreation director, sustainability coordinator, public works, and volunteers. The fridge’s location is up for debate, O’Hanlon said, but may be placed on the side of the borough hall building or a public park.
“[Community fridges] give people access to food whenever they need it,” O’Hanlon said.
READ: Food Insecurity in Bucks County Worsened by Trump and DOGE Cuts
O’Hanlon said the fridge’s hours would ideally be 24/7, but ultimately depends on its location. Troyer emphasized that increased hours of access community fridges offer is “extremely important.”
“[These programs are] for folks who work multiple jobs who can’t get to typical food pantry distribution hours, [or] who don’t have reliable transportation so they can’t go to typical food pantry hours,” Troyer said.
O’Hanlon said the program would be open to partnering with farmers markets, community gardens, local restaurants, and business owners. This way, the program would be a more “cohesive community approach” rather than only having organizations run their separate operations.
“The government working with everybody – working with faith-based communities, business owners, and nonprofits – would just provide a more open and ample opportunity for people to get the help that they need,” O’Hanlon said.
READ: With SNAP Cuts, Rising Hunger and Funding Reductions, Bucks County Food Banks Feeling Squeezed
Troyer added reasoning as to why Doylestown is a good location for the community fridge program.
“Doylestown has this opportunity to provide because of their higher employment being a draw into town, access to public transportation, and security and safety with the borough providing this space,” Troyer said.
Readers can check the Doylestown Borough website for updates on the program’s movement through town council. You can also contact your council member here.
