Despite some misuse in recent months, both the Sackville Community Sharing Cupboard and its counterpart the Station 8 Community Fridge in Dorchester continue to supply area residents with much needed groceries on flexible schedules.
The new style of food distribution has become a fixture of life in Tantramar. The operations work like self-serve food banks, with food stored and available on site, and people able to come pick up what they need at any time. The lack of tracking and monitoring makes it easy and convenient for people in need, but the model is also prone to occasional abuse. Recently Station 8 (also known as the Dorchester Moving Forward Cooperative) made some changes to its community fridge program, closing it overnight and better defining the region it’s meant to serve.
Station 8 first started their Community Fridge back in July 2022 with a goal to help supply fresh produce, dairy and proteins. An anonymous corporate donor gives two truckloads of food every week, and staff and volunteers working out of the Station 8 headquarters stock the fridges daily.
Volunteer Wendy Keats says the program generally works as intended, and gets lots of use, with supplies dwindling by the end of each week. But there have also been incidents of misuse.
Because the community fridges are located beside the Station 8 office, staff and volunteers have a sense of who and how many people come and go. A couple of times they stocked the fridges, “and 15 minutes later, everything is gone,” says Keats.
“We were watching people with Nova Scotia license plates coming in and going out with six bags of food,” she says. “And we were also being informed by members of the community about people who were abusing it from outside of the area.”
Keats says Station 8 also received images documenting attempts to sell food on social media, food that was likely sourced from the free community fridge.
“We did have adequate evidence that it was being used in a way it was not intended for,” says Keats. “And by people it was not intended for.”
The incidents prompted Station 8 to make some changes to their operation. They stocked the fridge more often and with less produce, started closing access overnight, and have more clearly defined their target clients according to region. The fridge is now open 10am to 10pm, seven days a week, says Keats, and “we’ve had to make it clear that it is for people in the greater Dorchester area.”
Sackville’s Community Sharing Cupboard, located in a small shed just behind the Sackville Commons building on Lorne Street, has also been well used since in opened in May 2023, and has had similar issues with misuse.
The Cupboard is a project of the Sackville Food Bank, and is stocked twice per week by volunteers Jacqueline and Tammy Fahey. Unlike Station 8, the Sackville Cupboard supplies are purchased from the Food Bank budget, but both operations also rely on food donated directly from community members and users. The Sackville Cupboard also gets extra produce from Station 8 on a regular basis.
The Faheys say there have been incidents where they have returned to the cupboard within minutes of restocking and found it cleaned out. Some clients also report issues with finding the cupboard bare. In some cases, the Faheys have spoken to people involved, which seems to have resolved some issues.
“There’s not really too much we can do differently,” says Jacqueline Fahey. “We can check on it, but that would be very time consuming.” Fahey says that recently, ”it seems to be better,” and she’s, “hopeful that things are going to just stay this way.”
Although there’s occasional calls for security cameras and enhanced monitoring on social media when problems occur, Keats and the Faheys agree that those aren’t practical responses, and defeat the self-serve nature of the operation.
“What are we supposed to do with cameras?” asks Keats. “This is volunteer staff. We’re just trying to do the best that we can to serve and help out our communities.”
Keats and the Faheys all agree that the Community Fridge and Community Sharing Cupboards, despite occasional incidents with misuse, are working well to get food distributed to those in need.
“Usually when certain things go on,” says Tammy Fahey, “it ends up with a few people have ruined it for everybody… We’re trying not to let that happen. We’re just continuing. And if there are a few oddballs out there, we hope they ease off… Because right now people need it.”
