We Create 2022
Community Design Competition
The We Create community design competition is an annual event in which community members come together to propose creative solutions to the many challenges facing our city. Each year, a different challenge is addressed. This year, the competition seeks proposals for Springfield’s first innovative
COMMUNITY FRIDGE
The Challenge
COVID-19 brought further attention to the inequities embedded in our communities. Along with issues such as health care, employment, housing, and education, food insecurity and malnutrition are amongst the concerns. Ensuring that all citizens have adequate and equitable access, purchasing power, and physical availability to reliable and nutritiously well-balanced food supply is a necessity.
Globally, community fridges have introduced a new way to tackle both issues of food insecurity and food waste. When placed in appropriate locations, a community fridge can become an identifiable tool and asset for the community.
The Competition
Teams worked to design an accessible, user-friendly, self-sustainable, and secure micro food-hub that would be supported by a continuous stream of staff and volunteers who would help operate, replenish, and clean the fridge. Final designs were evaluated according to the criteria of Research, Innovation, Functionality, and Aesthetics.
The community fridge was placed near the street entrance to Urban Roots Farm in West Central Neighborhood to help support food security and healthy nutrition. The seed of the project came into fruition in April 2021 by a few well-intended, self-motivated community members who had perceived the need to launch the Community Fridge Initiative in Springfield. The first community fridge will be built through a partnership between the founding community members, Urban Roots Farm, West Central Neighborhood Alliance, and the Drury AIAS Chapter.