Meet Asmeret

Written By Harrison Tillinghast

When we came up with the idea for Fridge Fridays, we knew we had access to leftover food and a bunch of willing friends. What we didn’t know was where we would find a community fridge and learn about how supplying them really works. We did a Google search and, lucky for us, we found Asmeret. Since my first call with her, she has provided us with an amazing amount of time, knowledge, and ideas for our club. Now, eight months later, we took some of our time to ask Asmeret how she started One Love Community Fridge and what inspired her. Here’s what we learned.

At a young age, Asmeret left her home in East Africa for Sweden to flee a war. As she approached her twenties, she came to the United States to finish college and pursue a career in finance. However, after her first day on the job, she decided finance wasn’t for her and redirected her focus to the world of fashion. “I realized my heart was somewhere else,” she says, reflecting on her switch in careers.

Being an immigrant herself, Asmeret has always felt a strong tie to other immigrant families. When covid hit, and food became more difficult to access for some families, Asmerat decided to take action. After getting a group of friends and neighbors together, they formed One Love Community Fridge (OLCF). Despite its initial success, she found it challenging to get more people involved. “Most people want to be a part of [fighting food insecurity] and help, but they don’t know what to do first or how to take the first step.” Realizing this, she worked on simplifying the ways people could contribute to the effort. “People think you need to do a lot to make a difference, but it is [sometimes] better to start small,” she states. Asmeret believes that anyone can make a difference, starting with simply dropping off food at a local community fridge.

OLCF has now been operating for over four years, and is still growing. However, New York City is starting to see a decline in the number of fridges despite an increase in food costs and food insecurity. As a result, Asmeret has had to find new ways to drive engagement. “We need to ensure that community fridges are not looked upon as simply an emergency relief initiative” she says. To help shift the perception of OLCF from an emergency initiative to a community initiative, Asmeret has focused on working with groups and organizations like Brooklyn Tech.

Asmeret and OLCF have been a big part of our club’s success. She has helped us find food and locate communities and refrigerators that are in need of supply.  OLCF is now focused on getting more schools from around the city involved in the fight against food insecurity. According to Asmeret, “schools are an amazing source for food that must continue to be tapped.” Recently, she worked with P.S. 11 to do a food-packing event. Similar to one of our earlier meetings, they distributed 30 crates of eggs (roughly 6,000 eggs!). When asked about her advice to us as a club and other students wanting to get involved, she couldn’t further stress the idea of spreading awareness. “What you guys are doing is amazing, and we need more schools to understand the issue and take initiative to get involved.”

With Asmeret’s support, students and schools are taking action and addressing the issue of food insecurity. On May 9th, our club will be participating in a panel on the city’s Student Food Recovery Taskforce in order to bring more schools into the effort. Together, we can nourish our community by joining the fight against food insecurity.