My wife and I volunteer at a community fridge and one of our policies is that we donât judge what people take or how they take it. Thereâs a lot of disrespect going to on with the property and occasionally people take all of the food at once, and Iâve had people say Things about my Gender, but the minute you start telling people they canât come to the fridge or they canât take food, youâre fucking up the whole idea.
Over time, that continued kindness of just. Cleaning it. Turning up. Restocking the fridge and the larder. Not chasing people away for using it as a meeting spot or to smoke or drink. Saying hello as people turn up. Showing up at the farmerâs market to bring home the extra and be amongst the crowd.
It gathers interest, people help. The community joins in and starts to donate and begins to take a little pride in what was built. Maybe the guy that called me a tranny one time has started acting a little more sheepish around me and maybe heâll take that lesson going forward.
When you let people be human and fuck up and let those discomforts interact in a way where nobody is going to corner anybody, they start to put their guard down. When they start to put their guard down and get to know you, they have a person to refer to when theyâre thinking of other people like you. And maybe they see that other person as more human because of the human they know.
