By Brandon Henry
AFRO Intern
It started with four refrigerators provided by Marci Yankelov. But with the creation of the Baltimore Community Fridge Network (BCFN) in 2025, there are now over 20 local refrigerators as well as pet pantries dispersed throughout Charm City.
Founded by Julie Kichline, Elizabeth Miller, Lila Perilloux and Yankelov, BCFN has become a resource throughout the area. Yankelov helped with the original four fridges. Miller, a friend of Yankelov before BCFN was founded. She became involved when she realized that four local refrigerators were not enough for the community.
“I made a post that was like ‘Who’s got fridges…who’s got locations?’” said Miller. “I was like ‘I don’t know how this works but I’m gonna figure it out as I do it.’ I don’t need to have a whole plan, I’m just gonna start figuring out what the resources are and what I can do.”
Yankelov and Miller then started to gather refrigerators, as well as a team of people that had experience within the food insecurity and food rescue areas to strengthen their plans to expand the local fridge network.
The relationship between the fridge network and the community already existed, as there were already local fridges and people that supplied and used them; there was just a lack of knowledge within the general public.
Credit: Photo courtesy of the Baltimore Community Fridge Network
Julie Kichline, owner of Kik-line Design, had cooked food put in the local fridges, and volunteers took shifts on Thanksgiving and Christmas to ensure the fridges had food for families to eat during school holiday breaks.
No specific person is responsible for stocking the fridges.
“When you organize things, sometimes you choke the life out of something,” said Miller. “The cooks come to the fridges and if the fridge is full they go to a different one. Rarely is a fridge completely full.”
Members of BCFN use their connections to ensure that refrigerators are stocked. They take food that may be edible for five more days, in addition to prepared meals and donated groceries.
The organization is entirely run by volunteers, between the cooks, people that supply groceries, and even the founders. Despite this, they have had extreme growth from the beginning of the year to now.
“We grew from four sites were existing before we started the network,” said Miller. “I believe we are at 22 and that’s in less than nine months. We’ve done that with no money, all donations and people just loving on people with all the SNAP cuts and federal funding changing.”
BCFN builds a lot of their own fridge shelters, and adjust them over time. They are covered by the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act Food Donation Act, which protects them from liability if any products donated in good faith later causes harm to whomever receives it.
Miller is the logistics lead for launching new sites, and pushes for all new sites to receive a full-sized refrigerator.
“In order to expand the network in a meaningful way that is very intentional about ‘How can we feed the most people?’ We really try to take it to the full-size if at all possible,” she said.
Miller said despite the many obstacles with operating the fridge network, she focuses on two things: having a fridge available for use, and feeding people with them.
“People been hungry before this administration, but it certainly hasn’t gotten better,” said Miller. “We just want Baltimore to feel the love, and we have these beautiful conversations with food seekers when donors are coming to the fridge and we just let them know we care about them.”