Free Food Fridge on Time’s cover
Woman who started Albany hunger project topic of pandemic story
Free Food Fridge Albany and its founder Jammella Anderson will be featured in Time’s double issue on Women and the Pandemic.
The March 15 issue, which can be now read online, spotlights Anderson’s work to feed the hungry by stocking outdoor refrigerators with free food from local farmers, markets, restaurants and good
Samaritans. The Times Union profiled Anderson and Free Food Fridge Albany in August.
Anderson, who could not be immediately reached for comment Thursday afternoon on the national feature, told Time that the nearly 10 refrigerators are loaded with high-quality foods, not scraps.
“Why are you undeserving of good, healthy food and rich-nutrient food just because you can’t afford it?” she said.
Anderson is also featured on one of four planned magazine covers that can now be seen on the Time website. It is unclear which cover will make it onto Albany’s newsstands.
“Grateful doesn’t begin to cut it,” Anderson said in an Instagram post about the magazine cover. “Things are bad and, we’re making it better.”
Since the pandemic, food pantries and soup kitchens across the state have seen a sharp rise in demand, particularly for families with children. Before the pandemic, an estimated 1.2 million New Yorkers were food insecure.
Now the number of food insecure people is estimated at more than 2 million, based on U.S. census data from April and May.
In October, Anderson told the Times Union that the need is great, but she tries to keep up by restocking the refrigerators four times a day.
“We have people affected by homelessness, people whose unemployment benefits have run out,” Anderson told the Times Union. “If you are an underprivileged person and you don’t know where your next meal will come from, it’s really scary.”