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Drive for Five to support the Newton Community freedge

Wed, Oct 13

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Newton Community freedge

The Franklin Social Action Committee is partnering with Newton Neighbors on their fall Drive for Five, a project to support the Newton Community freedge. The drive is happening from October 1-13. See our event details for how you can help!

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Drive for Five to support the Newton Community freedge
Drive for Five to support the Newton Community freedge

Time & Location

Oct 13, 2021, 8:00 AM

Newton Community freedge, 420 Watertown St, Newton, MA 02458, USA

About the Event

The Franklin Social Action Committee is partnering with Newton Neighbors on their fall Drive for Five, a project to support the Newton Community freedge. The drive launches today - see below for how you can help.  

What is the freedge and what is the Drive for Five?The freedge is a community refrigerator & pantry that is open 24/7 and provides free food and personal care products to anyone who needs them, no questions asked and no sign up needed. The freedge is organized by Newton Food Pantry in collaboration with many local organizations, including Newton Neighbors. It is a volunteer-led, community-supported resource, with the motto “take what you need, leave what you can”.  

The Drive for Five is a project organized by Newton Neighbors to support the freedge. It is a community-wide effort to stock the freedge with five particularly high-demand items.   

How can I help?

We encourage families to shop for items together and to use this as an opportunity to talk about food insecurity in our community and beyond, and how we can come together to support our neighbors.  

What to donate 

The five items to donate for the drive are cooking oil, pasta, pasta sauce (your choice), toothpaste, and liquid hand or body soap.   

If you’d like, feel free to add more groceries or personal care items. This is a great way to get kids engaged in thinking about the foods they like to share with others and picking things to donate. We also encourage you to remember that Newton is a diverse and multicultural community, and to consider donating additional culturally-specific foods (e.g., tortillas, sauces or spices, Asian vegetables, etc.). The freedge accepts a wide range of items, but there are some limits for food safety - please review the donation guidelines for details.  

Where to donate 

You can bring your donations directly to the freedge, which is located at 420 Watertown Street (the parking lot of Central Drapery and Dry Cleaning in Nonantum).  

Alternatively, you can drop off your donations (nonperishables only, please!) at 39 Berkshire Rd, Waltham 02453 (house is in West Newton on the corner of Falmouth Rd, right on the Waltham border), and we will bring them over to the freedge.   

When to donate 

The Drive for Five will run from October 1-13. After that, we will no longer be collecting items at 39 Berkshire Rd but you are welcome to bring donations directly to the freedge anytime.  

Is your family experiencing food insecurity?

If your family needs food, the freedge is a resource for you. It’s free, and you can visit it anytime day or night (it's at 420 Watertown Street in the parking lot of Central Drapery and Dry Cleaning in Nonantum). The freedge has milk, eggs, produce, bread, rice, pasta, beans, peanut butter, prepared foods and much more! Please take only what you need on the day you visit and leave the rest for your neighbors. You can see this multilingual freedge flyer for more information.  

Ranjani Paradise and Jackie Savage-Borne 

Franklin Social Action Committee co-chairs 

Contact Ranjani at ranjani.krishnan10@gmail.com with any questions

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