Meet Kathy J of Los Angeles Community Fridges

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathy J.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’m a volunteer with the Los Angeles Community Fridges. For me, it all started when I drove by the Glassell Park Community Fridge, in front of the Bridge Thrift Store on Eagle Rock Boulevard in Los Angeles. Why is there a refrigerator out on the sidewalk, in public? It’s out there all day and night? Why? So I looked it up when I got home. Thank goodness for the internet – it was a breeze to find more information, and get involved!

L.A. Community Fridges is a network of decentralized, independent refrigerators and pantries that provide food and supplies to the Los Angeles community through mutual aid. The network was established in June 2020, when a group of L.A.-based strangers became inspired by what they saw online about “In Our Hearts”, a New York-based mutual aid group that started their own local community fridge. With everyone sheltering in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many were interested in low- or no-contact ways to maintain community and help each other.

These L.A.-based strangers banded together and within just a few weeks in June 2020, launched the first fridge of what would become a network of over 20 fridges and pantries! Social media has been a powerful tool to forge bonds and spread the word.

The fridges and pantries run on the concept of mutual aid: There is no non-profit, no hierarchy, and no leadership involved. The L.A. Community Fridges is a flat group of many, many volunteers across Los Angeles County, from as far west as Van Nuys, out to Pomona in the east, working together. What do volunteers do? We launch new fridges & pantries; source, maintain, clean, and repair refrigerators; run events and pop-ups to collect donations and spread the word about our organization; seek regular food donors; maintain our online presence; create digital art; and bring donated and purchased food and toiletries to the fridges & pantries. There are so many different ways to help out!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Keeping the fridges clean is a constant battle. We have many volunteers who devote a few minutes of their day to clean up when they visit to stock food, and some folks regularly visit high-traffic fridges to do deep cleans. But somehow, we always need more folks to visit and clean! Many of our host businesses will lend their cleaning supplies, so if you’re ever interested, just show up, go inside, and ask!

With the cutbacks to CalFresh and SNAP food benefits, and an increasingly difficult economy to survive and thrive in, it has also been a challenge to keep our fridges well-stocked throughout the day. If you can donate, please do! The fridges & pantries can always use more. And if you need food, come to the fridges. There is no registration, ID check, requirement, or social interaction required. Take what you need, leave what you can.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
In my volunteer work with L.A. Community Fridges, I draw on my experience as a project management professional. I enjoy creating structure while ensuring that work remains collaborative, and responsive to our communities’ ever changing needs. Among the group, I try to encourage conversations between the teams who support different fridge locations; share assets and information with folks who are newer to the group; do outreach to secure donations; and organize events, coordinating volunteers and logistics.

In 2026, I helped launch the Glendale Community Pantry, in partnership with Junior High Los Angeles, a nonprofit multipurpose gallery and events space committed to supporting marginalized communities. In the latter half of 2025, we collaborated together on several donation drives, in response to the federal immigration raids that hit Los Angeles hard in mid-2025. Junior High recognized a natural opportunity to establish a permanent pantry in their space, and asked to join the L.A. Community Fridges network. With lots of help from more experienced volunteers, I supported Junior High in establishing the pantry, including posting and promoting online, outreach to spread the word to other nearby non-profits and community organizations, creating and distributing flyers, coordinating donation collection boxes to set up at local businesses, and organizing donation drives to ensure the pantry would remain full in the early days after launch. The Glendale Community Pantry has been active for almost a year now. When I visit it to donate, I’m constantly finding donations from others, and sometimes run into someone picking up supplies they need. Although one pantry will not fix our systemic issues around food scarcity, it is rewarding to see real evidence that we’re make a difference!

If you want to get involved to support our neighbors and help alleviate hunger in the greater Los Angeles area, reach out via our website or Instagram, OR simply start visiting a fridge or pantry in your area. Go see what’s in there and what’s not, to get an idea of how you can start directly supporting it.

Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
Canva is a big help when creating social posts, given my very limited artistic talents! When I’m driving around, whether it’s to pick up donations for the Glendale Community Pantry, run around distributing flyers, or visit the pantry to clean and stock it, I’m listening to one of these podcasts: Steph Infection by Steph Tolev, A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein, What Went Wrong by Lizzie Bassett & Chris Winterbauer, or Maintenance Phase by Aubrey Gordon & Michael Hobbes.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lacommunityfridges.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lacommunityfridges
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/los-angeles-community-fridges-lacf/
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/cpS_6Gbvf30
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/glendalecommunitypantry

Image Credits
Timothy Aarons