Feeding The Future
RADHIKA SHARMA IN CONVERSATION WITH ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX
Asmeret Berhe-Lumax at a One Love Community Fridge. Photo: One Love Community Fridge
Asmeret Berhe-Lumax founded One Love Community Fridge (OLCF) in 2020 at a moment when a deluge of systemic failures exacerbated food insecurity throughout New York. What started with one fridge stocked by her family has bloomed into 26 fridges throughout Brooklyn and expansion plans outside the five boroughs. Starting with food to fridge, OLCF has iteratively added to its model to include three more ecosystems (farm to fridge, school to fridge, and chef to fridge) that offer community members a multifaceted and contextualized food education alongside its immediate food offerings.
Our current food system is owned by a handful of multinational companies that optimize operations for profit rather than feeding people. We grow enough food to feed 1.5 times the global population, yet ⅓ of the world is food insecure, meaning they lack regular access to nutritious food. By enacting grassroots power, OLCF’s approach facilitates food sovereignty: the right for people to own their food systems over corporations. OLCF both gets nutritious food into hands and homes and invites folks across the food chain to take part in their food’s journey. To learn more about OLCF, we sat down with Asmeret for a conversation.
Photography by Alyona Kuzmina & Troi Williams for OLCF.
RADHIKA SHARMA: Right now, OLCF has 26 active fridges throughout NYC with more to come. The goal of these community fridges is to provide access to fresh, healthy, food without stigma. How do you decide when to open a fridge and how to offer One Love to a community?
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: You know, it's interesting, because now, many of the fridges that we set up recently have been because an organization reached out to us. They saw a fridge somewhere and said: we love the concept, we love the idea, we have a need, how can we partner with you?
Which is very different from when we launched in 2020. Back then, it was like, wait, what does that mean? You know, who's going to come to the fridge?
Photo: One Love Community Fridge
And I think that shift is because slowly but surely we are building up trust as an organization with our community. I also think people recognize the need to really reimagine traditional approaches to addressing food insecurity.
When we initially started in 2020, our goal was to set up fridges by public schools. Then we saw so many fridges pop up that we pivoted to focus on food partnership and driving volunteers and community to do different fridges. About two years ago, we saw that some of our fridges were closing down for different reasons. We were like, okay, this is a good time for us to start setting up fridges again, and we have more fridge locations coming up this year, which is amazing. I mean, think about it, even if there was a fridge on every other block, the need would still not be met. I don't think we can have too many fridges.
RADHIKA SHARMA: When you're thinking through these kinds of partnerships, what does that look like? Is there a particular way in which you understand what you need from a partnership?
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: It’s fairly straightforward, honestly. We need a location, and that location needs to be easy to access, easy to get to, and easy to maintain. People that come to the fridge need to feel comfortable there.
“Unfortunately, there’s not a single county in New York state that is not food insecure.”
Unfortunately, there's not a single county in New York state that is not food insecure. And if you look at New York City itself, you know there's not a single neighborhood that would not benefit from a fridge. Even on the Upper East Side, there are a lot of people who work in the service industry that could use the support.
At the same time, we're really focusing on areas where it's very, very difficult to access fresh food. That's the priority.
RADHIKA SHARMA: That makes sense.
One Love Community Fridge consists of four ecosystems: food to fridge, farm to fridge, school to fridge, and chef to fridge. How did you design that model, and what actions does that model inspire?
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: We initially started with food to fridge; the goal was just to redirect food. But then we started to think—what is it that we really want to achieve? We want to make sure that any initiative that we take on has longevity and that it's sustainable. To us, that means making sure we always ask (1) why are we doing this? (2) who's part of it? and (3) how do we ensure that people can continue to be a part of it?
One Love Community Fridge is not just about feeding one person for one day. It’s really about community building. So when we first conceptualized the four ecosystems, the bigger question was: how are we part of ensuring that our people can be the best they can be?
“Access to fresh and healthy food is important, but access by itself is not enough.”
For us, that has to do with having the ability to build healthier habits, and that comes from consistency. If we are just redirecting food, it's difficult to have consistency. We have amazing food partners, but we don't always know how much and what we're getting.
To have consistency, we decided to partner with smaller farms. That’s where farm to fridge comes in. One reason we partner with smaller farms is because we believe they are part of a sustainable future: we need smaller farms, we need people to know how food is being grown, and we need to be able to grow food that still has a high nutritional value. We also partner with smaller farms because there’s an educational component that's important for us, too. Access to fresh and healthy food is important, but access by itself is not enough. It needs to be connected to education and, again, consistency. A lot of our work is redirecting excess food from farms, but also creating educational opportunities, connecting our families with local farms, and even creating a CSA program to better financially support our farmers.
Photography by Alyona Kuzmina & Troi Williams for OLCF.
But again, we’re talking about habits, and we know how difficult it is to change habits. That’s why we expanded our focus to schools. I mean, I have kids myself, they spend so much of their time in schools. So we work with schools as well as families so that they can connect what they are learning about food access and agriculture in school to their lives outside of school. So that's school to fridge.
The fourth ecosystem—chef to fridge—grew from a desire to focus on produce. Fresh produce was a big focus of OLCF, especially in the beginning, because we felt like that was missing from not only our fridges, but also many other food distro services. We realized that a lot of people in our community either don't have access to kitchens or they don't have time to cook and/or the knowledge around cooking anymore. So we decided to add fresh meals prepared by local chefs to our fridges as well.
RADHIKA SHARMA: As you all continue to develop this model, I would love to hear a little bit more about interdependence within your work and how these different ecosystems strengthen one another. In many ways, that feels like a very clear way of building resiliency into OLCF.
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: Yes, definitely. Every one of these ecosystems interacts with, and is dependent on, the other. They’re constantly working together.
Throughout the year we host workshops at local farms for families from partnering schools. These classes are facilitated by chefs who use some of the redirected food from our fridges along with the farm-fresh produce to share about healthy cooking habits. These programs are an example of putting our four ecosystems into practice. And it’s amazing, right? We’re minimizing food waste, but we’re also bringing families to the farm to show how food is grown as well as demonstrate how beautiful, nutritious meals can be made using very simple tools.
We feel our greatest impact in the community is at the intersection of these four ecosystems. And by impact, I mean: does this program get people to start thinking about new ideas, learning skills, connecting to different people?
Photography by Alyona Kuzmina & Troi Williams for OLCF.
RADHIKA SHARMA: What’s incredibly interesting and comprehensive about y'all's approach is that so often, food access programs don’t have a whole supply chain approach. How did that desire to bring in this perspective come into play?
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: I think it's a couple of things. Maybe because I worked in supply chain management before, I feel like some of the challenges I've seen, especially with grassroots organizations, is that there is a lack of connection to bigger institutions. At OLCF, we strive to work on three levels: with individuals, with small businesses, and with global organizations.
I think a lot of organizations work on one level, but rarely all three. Part of the reason why is because it requires more work. It's complex, and it takes longer. And building a relational organization like ours just takes more time.
But once you build that initial foundation, it carries you a lot further, right? OLCF is a very human-centered organization and I truly believe that people who come into contact with One Love and the work that we're doing can feel the difference. There’s a very marked quality of care that we have in connection with our community. Because of that, I hope that our work inspires even more initiatives that we haven't even thought about.
At the same time, the choice to take a systems approach is because One Love has always asked: how do we have the most impact? And for us, that means thinking it through all the way.
“But I would say that our approach from the beginning has been that we’re just going to use the same language no matter who we’re talking to.”
RADHIKA SHARMA: It also sounds challenging in that connecting with varied partners can require a lot of translation. Trying to understand needs, languaging, ways of framing, being legible to different kinds of folks with different kinds of priorities— that can take work. Does that resonate with you?
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: I mean, definitely. It does require work. But I would say that our approach from the beginning has been that we're just going to use the same language no matter who we're talking to. Meaning: even if it's printed, even if it’s over dinner or during a workshop or in conversation with a partner—we just have one language.
Photography by Alyona Kuzmina & Troi Williams for OLCF.
We spent a lot of time trying to define what the language of OLCF is so that no matter who it is that we're speaking to, they feel inspired and respected and seen. The community is very much part of what we're building, and our language reflects that.
I think the one challenge is that when you're building a non-traditional model for approaching food insecurity—especially when you get to a point like where we are now when we're trying to figure out what our funding looks like—it can be difficult to discern how you translate what you do for funders without compromising your integrity. That can require a different kind of language.
But within our community, everything we do is meant to create a space for a lot of different people. And that’s another thing that I'm really proud of: One Love bridges so many different cultures, backgrounds, experiences, and ages. It’s amazing.
RADHIKA SHARMA: It is amazing. I feel that.
So much of what y'all do is very deeply related to our climate crisis. Food access is more of an immediate need, but that education—in terms of how we're growing and where we’re going—is everything.
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: Absolutely. Exactly.
RADHIKA SHARMA: So with that said, what do you see as the role of One Love within our current climate crisis?
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: I think about the food that we've redirected to fridges. I mean, we're keeping so much food from landfills. We have one partner who is great with composting what we can’t redistribute, but even with composting, there's a lot of food that can be redirected before it gets there. So that’s one thing.
And the other is that I think our work with smaller farms is really important as well in terms of climate change. Through our farm partnerships, we’re able to build healthy habits through educational programming. And that education aspect is critical as well in helping change people's understanding of what systems we are participating in and contributing to.
RADHIKA SHARMA: What possibilities do you envision One Love facilitating through education and food access?
Photography by Alyona Kuzmina & Troi Williams for OLCF.
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: It’s really amazing when students learn something new about plants and food and vegetables and how they grow and what they can do with it. We give out seed packets at OLCF for students to take home, and it’s always cool when they share their stories of working with herbs. We know cooking with herbs bolsters the nutritional aspect of food but it also is a way to build self-efficacy. And that, for me, is everything.
So that's a big one. The other thing is that we just launched a committee focused on middle school, high school, and college students. And I'm really excited for these students to drive our food access and educational initiatives and to support them in that process. I’m excited to see what ideas come out of that.
RADHIKA SHARMA: There's an opportunity here to develop school programs that not only support young students, but also people who are feeding their families, feeding themselves, and are wanting to find creativity and excitement in that process.
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: Absolutely. And one thing that I love to emphasize with One Love is that small actions can lead to big changes. At OLCF we ask: how do we break down global injustices into actionable steps that people can incorporate into their everyday lives to create a better future for all of us? And we shouldn’t discount just how big of a change we can create when we all participate. So let's get everyone involved.
RADHIKA SHARMA: I love it. We are so conditioned to want the solution, the silver bullet that will solve everything. But it's never gonna be that big thing. Transformation will always be made up of smaller shifts. Witnessing the different programming that you guys do is a reminder that it's so important for every one of us to have diverse models for community building and connection so that if one thing isn't going perfectly, for whatever reason, we have other ways to be able to reinforce and to organize. We have to always be drafting.
Photo: One Love Community Fridge
ASMERET BERHE-LUMAX: Yes. At OLCF, we're not really looking for perfection, but we are always looking at how we can continue to grow. How can we do better? How can more people be involved? Asking these questions helps us stay in this journey. Collaboration with different organizations is also important if we really want to have true change.
Radhika Sharma (they/them) is a Brooklyn-based facilitator and designer working towards food sovereignty. In their work, they prioritize interdependence and the beings our dominant systems marginalize. They are currently running partnerships and product development at Burlap & Barrel, a single origin spice company and public benefit corporation. In the past, they have worked in coop development, farming, wine, tech, and consulting.
Asmeret Berhe-Lumax is the founder of One Love Community Fridge. One Love Community Fridge works to eradicate hunger, food insecurity, malnutrition, and the stigma associated with all three, through an integrated, multi-generational, and inclusive movement that centers access to fresh foods, nutrition education, and sustainability.