A free community fridge opened in downtown Evanston for the first time, stocked daily by volunteers with nonperishable food anyone can take.

The fridge sits on the Woman's Club of Evanston property, Evanston Now reported Wednesday, Sept. 2. It is the latest addition to a growing network of neighborhood fridges run by the mutual aid group Evanston Community Fridges.

Organizers are still waiting on electrical permits before the unit can hold refrigerated items. Until the permits come through, volunteers have been filling it with shelf-stable goods each day.

The downtown location fills a gap in a network that has been expanding across the city. In June, Evanston Now reported two more fridges were on the way elsewhere in town.

The organization operates as a grassroots mutual aid effort that started small. Anna Grant-Bolton joined as the third member while a senior at Evanston Township High School. She told The Daily Northwestern in June that the early days were scrappy.

"I was the third member (to join), and we really had no idea what we were doing," Grant-Bolton said. As of June, she was a master's student at the University of Chicago and still working with the organization.

The Daily Northwestern also reported that volunteers had noticed a decrease in food recovered by The Campus Kitchen, a Northwestern sustainability organization that collects surplus from university dining halls for the community fridges. The drop highlighted the network's reliance on a patchwork of donation sources.

In May, students in the Black Men Lead mentorship program at ETHS prepared 150 lunch bags for Connections for the Homeless and Evanston Community Fridges. The program, formed in collaboration with Northwestern, supports young Black men at the high school.

About one in five Evanstonians faces food insecurity, Patch reported, citing Interfaith Action of Evanston's citywide soup kitchen network.

Residents who want to donate can drop off nonperishable items at the Woman's Club site. Refrigerated donations will be accepted once the electrical permits are approved.