The Lebanese NGO, Berrad El Hay, which translates to “The Neighborhood’s Fridge,” is precisely what its founder Nayla Frem Sayegh started two years ago.
Before launching a community fridge concept in Beirut, she kept snacks and drinks in her car to give to the homeless. Her personal way of helping, she found out soon enough, wasn’t as sustainable nor reached as many people as she hoped. She wanted to do more, much more to ease the sufferings she was seeing around.
Hence, inspired by the foreign concept of community fridges, she started Berrad El Hay.
From one fridge in a neighborhood in the heart of Beirut providing merely 50 meals a day, her non-profit now supplies thousands of meals monthly for hundreds of struggling families.
In June, Berrad El Hay provided 16,000 meals!
Their community fridges can be found at St. John the Baptist Church in Achrafieh, the St. Michael Church in Mar Mikhael, and at the Notre Dame De Secours Church in Haret Sakhr in Jounieh.
People can get involved by either volunteering to cook or share extra meals from their own kitchen, shop for ingredients, donate, or help by packing and distributing food to beneficiaries and find new sources.
