Eloísa Trinidad and Power Malu: Overthrow Community Fridge

We're creating a new system. When you look at it in that way, that's activism in itself. And that's actually fighting against a system that has billions of dollars, that has been spending billions of dollars, and not even asking people what they like to eat. They're not even considering the health.

We're in the middle of a pandemic and who gets hit the hardest, black and brown communities with underlying conditions. Those underlying conditions stem from what they're eating. I get to go into these people's apartments, look in their fridge and then look at their medicine cabinet and see all of these drugs that they're taking because of ailments that they got from food. Meanwhile, if they were to change up how they eat, we were able to reintroduce that in a public sense, because with the fridge it’s like we're telling people, listen you deserve to have access to this.”

-Power Malu

Power Malu and Eloísa Trinidad are the team behind Overthrow Community Fridge, New York City's first plant-based community fridge that sits outside of Overthrow Boxing Club.

A community fridge is a form of mutual aid to address food insecurity. They supply food to people who have limited access to fresh groceries, and since the pandemic began, people have even less access – especially to nutritious food.

In addition to being a longtime community organizer and activist, Power is also the Director of Community Affairs & Special Events at the Overthrow Boxing Club. Eloísa is the executive director of Chillis on Wheels, a nonprofit that focus on making veganism accessible to communities in need. She’s also the executive director of the Vegan Activist Alliance, a New York organization that fights to end animal exploitation.