Volunteer Week 2026

Celebrating Our Community Fridge Volunteers

From 1 to 7 June 2026, the UK marks Volunteers’ Week—a time to celebrate the people quietly transforming our neighbourhoods. This year, one of the fastest-growing local initiatives takes centre-stage: the Community Fridge.

While the title might make them sound like some sort of exotic kitchen appliance, Community Fridges are actually vital local recycling hubs, and are growing in popularity. Operated entirely by volunteers, they are turning the tide on food waste by ensuring good food goes to some of our neediest families, and is not just dumped into expensive landfill. In these days of perennial cost-of-living crises, this provides a lifeline to those struggling to cope with their bills.

What is a Community Fridge, and Who can Use it ?

Unlike a traditional food bank, a community fridge is open to absolutely everyone. There are no referrals, no vouchers, and no eligibility criteria. You can even come all the way from Land’s end or John O’Groats to visit ours here in the Midlands…if you can afford the petrol and the travel time!

The concept is beautifully simple - it is a communal space where local businesses, supermarkets, and allotment holders can provide fresh, surplus food that would otherwise be thrown away. Local fridge users can then visit and take what they need for free. It turns a massive environmental problem into a neighbourly solution which benefits the whole community.

Environmental Recycling in Action

When we think of recycling, we usually picture plastic bottles and cardboard boxes. But recycling  food  before it spoils is one of the most powerful tools we have to fight climate change; it is arguably even more important from a community point of view, because it benefits those most in need directly by providing good, wholesome food at zero cost. Here are just a few of the benefits:

• Preventing Methane Emissions: When food rots in a landfill, it emits methane—a greenhouse gas significantly more potent than carbon dioxide. Community fridges intercept this food at the eleventh hour and stop this happening. Since methane is ca 40 times more potent than CO2 as a ‘greenhouse’ gas, this really matters from an environmental point of view.

• Saving Embedded Resources: Throwing away a single loaf of bread doesn't just waste the bread; it wastes the water and fertiliser used to grow the wheat, the fuel used to transport it, the packaging used to keep it fresh, and all the energy used to bake it.

• Normalizing the Circular Economy: By removing the stigma around surplus food, community fridges teach us to view what we used to regard as ‘waste’ as a valuable, shared resource, and not just something festering in our fridge, which we feel guilty about when we’re eventually forced to throw it away.

At Charnwood Community Fridge, during financial year 2024-5 we recycled a whopping 27,116 kg of surplus food, provided at 5,552 individual fridge user visits. We’re proud of this contribution to the local community, and grateful to our local supermarket donors for their efforts in making it happen….and, of course, to the tireless efforts of our committed volunteers, without whom…it simply wouldn’t have. Current projections suggest we’ll recycle even more this year.

The Volunteers Behind our Fridges

A community fridge can’t run on electricity alone; what it really runs on is ‘volunteer power’….

Every single day that the fridge is open (and even on some days when it’s not!), teams of dedicated local heroes keep this ‘micro-recycling’ network alive. Here are some of them:

• The Food ‘Rescuers’: Drivers who visit local supermarkets at an appointed time to pick up any surplus bakery items, fruits, and vegetables they have available.

• The ‘Food-Safety Champions’: Volunteers who meticulously check fridge temperatures, log use-by dates, collect our recycling statistics and ensure hygiene standards are strictly met.

• The Community ‘Welcomers’: The people who chat with visitors, share recipe ideas for unusual ingredients, keep the space clean and inviting, etc., etc…and most important of all, share out the goodies….

Join the ‘Fresh Revolution’ This June

Food waste is a challenge we can actually help solve at a neighbourhood level. We’re all aware that our local authorities will be starting weekly food waste collections this year, with the aim of recycling more of our waste via composting. But our aim is to see as little as possible of our food end up in these new bins. This Volunteers' Week, why not pay a visit to your local community fridge? You can find your nearest fridge using the Hubbub map tool.  You can also find out more about food recycling, and how to minimise the amount that’s wasted yourself by visiting our article on our Recycling page.

Whether you’re moved to sign-up for weekly food collection volunteering, donate your surplus home-grown tomatoes, or simply start using the fridge to help rescue food yourself, you’ll be helping to build a more sustainable future.

If you’re inspired to actually start a new fridge in your own area …even better – we need a lot more of them. Check out the Hubbub site for what’s required and how to go about it.

We hope to see you in June……