A volunteer group has been left scratching their heads after a fridge that was designed to help feed those in need was stolen in Waterloo over the weekend.
“Not sure who it was, but hopefully they really needed it,” said Julie Sawatzky, founder and CEO of the 519 Community Collective.
The fridge program was initially launched close to two years ago, providing some basic necessities to those in need.
“The ideology is take what you need, give what you can,” she said.
The fridge, which was located behind the Café Pyrus Outpost, went missing sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning.
“The last time a volunteer saw the fridge was on Saturday after they did the produce drop-off,” Sawatzky explained.
“Then the next day my co-chair, Leah Bryant, went to go do a large fill-up and she walked around the corner and the door and the side panels, the hinges and everything were ripped off of the (fridge’s structural casing).”
The fridge had disappeared while all of the documentation for the fridge was strewn about, as were remnants of the structure surrounding the fridge as well as produce that was inside.
Sawatzky noted that it would not have been easy to remove the fridge as it was inside a wooden shelter and had been stabilized with the cord having been spray-foamed to protect it from the elements.
“They would have had to work pretty hard to get that out of there and unfortunately, they damaged the whole structure,” she said. “So the structure is a write-off; we’re going to have to redo that whole entire situation.”
She says they did not feel like the fridge was worth getting the police involved with so the theft was not reported.
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The story of the missing fridge has been spreading across social media and while there have been dozens of people stepping up with offers of fridges, the 519 Collective really needs someone with the proper expertise to replace the structure around it as well as the materials needed to build it.
“We’re going to have to build a solid shed with a proper metal roof with a decline for the rain and if we’re going to do it, we need to do it really, really well,” Sawatzky said.
“We’ll have to make sure whatever fridge we get is large enough and that we have a metal plate mounting into the shed floor.
“We don’t want to do all this work again for one to just walk off.”
Those who may not have that type of expertise can still help the 519 Collective and the fridge program in other ways.
“We would really want to encourage people to think outside the box and get involved in the volunteer network, purchase some fresh produce or even growing produce in their own garden and bring it on over when it’s back up and running again,” Sawatzky offered.
“And I know that once all this gets out, more people who are in need are going to hear about this location and want to come and utilize it, which is wonderful. But that will just increase the demand, right?”
While it seems like the the 519 Community Collective has been around for many years, Sawatzky launched the group at the beginning of the pandemic.
Sawatzky explained that her family has been trying to help those in need for many years and when the pandemic hit, she was looking for positive ways to keep busy.
“I was a photographer and a hairstylist. I wasn’t legally allowed to work and that was really difficult for me because I like to stay busy and I decided to turn my passion project into something online,” she recalled.
“So it’s just something that came natural to us but we thought, ‘Let’s take it online and see what we can figure out.’”
So it began with a Facebook group which has now blossomed into having 11,000 members.
“Through that, I recognize that there was a lot of people really struggling with food, needing to pay their bills and not being allowed to work and all these different things,” she said.
Things quickly blossomed from that moment over the past three-and-a-half years.
“What started as us just going out with a couple of friends and family serving spaghetti to the homeless communities across the region has blossomed and we now have 11 programs and services, including our community fridge, 26 little free accessible food pantries across the region,” Sawatzky said.
There is also a soup kitchen in Cambridge as well as those transitioning off the streets into homes as well as refugees hoping for a better life in Canada
“And we are all 100 per cent volunteers, myself included. Our whole board of directors and all of our administration team and volunteers just do this honestly out of the kindness of their heart,” she said.
“And when most people say ‘free time’, they would think of hanging out, going to see movies or that type of thing but this is what we do with our free time outside of working our full-time jobs.
“And it certainly has changed our lives in the most beautiful way.”
Those looking to volunteer with the 519 Community Collective can find out more information about the group and their programs here.
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