• ** Daily Tips **
• December 8, 2025

A few weeks ago, I learned a fancy new word from Andrew Sage: prefiguration.

A few months ago, when SNAP benefits abruptly disappeared, I immediately started working on bringing a Community Fridge to my town. It’s something I’d wanted to do for a while, and this was the spark that lit the fire in my belly.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, a Community Fridge is literally an open access fridge (and usually attached pantry) where people can share food they have and take food they need. It’s not a haves/have-nots thing. It’s a community resource for everyone.

I didn’t think it would be easy.

But I didn’t expect the level of push-back I got from people, either.

• Why not just donate to the official Food Pantry in town?
• What if someone poisons all the food?
• What about food-born illness?
• Who’s going to pay for electricity?
• What if someone takes more than they deserve?
• What if it’s empty?

Some of these are good questions about legitimate logistics concerns that need to be worked out. Some are obnoxious, parental, charity-model thinking. They’re all attempts to throw up road blocks and prevent the project from happening.

None of them pause for a second and say, “How can we make this work?”

I have answers to all of these questions. I’ve given them over-and-over again. Most of the people who ask just… disappear afterwards, which tells me the questions weren’t earnest or in good-faith.

The most important is that it’s not charity. It’s not the rich helping the poor.

It’s an opportunity for a community to help itself: to share resources, divert food waste, and work together for the common good.

There is no means testing. No restrictions on who can use it or how much they can take. No one deciding who deserves it and who doesn’t.

Take what you need. Give what you can.

But that’s really hard for a lot of people to conceptualize.

Under capitalism in general, and in America (where I live) in particular, you’re taught to look out for yourself, be ruggedly individual, work hard, and accumulate as much wealth as you can.

A resource rooted in sharing rather than throwing crumbs to the poor is completely foreign to how so much of modern culture operates.

So you get questions like, “what if someone takes more than they deserve?”

And that brings us to prefiguration.

Prefiguration is about building the future you want within the shell of existing structures.

It’s generally not going to replace an existing system—at least, not in any sort of immediate or rapid time scale.

But it does provide models people can look at to imagine something different.

Prefiguration serves as a lighthouse for a possible future. A direction you can head in. It provides little experiments that you can try and learn from.

You don’t need permission to build the future you want.

Finding a host for a Community Fridge has been filled with many closed doors and false starts. I still don’t have one, though I have met some wonderful new friends in town.

My house is not an ideal spot for one. I’m nowhere near our small downtown, near farms, with little foot or car traffic.

But I hit a point the other day where I’m sick of waiting, sick of asking permission, and sick of letting perfect be the enemy of “a start.”

So yesterday, I sketched out some rough plans, bought a bunch of lumber, and will be building a little free farmstand on my property.

Not quite a fridge, yet. But still, a place for people to share food and excess fruits and vegetables (I live near farms), and clothes and toys and home goods.

Then, when people ask, “what about…?” I can point them to something tangible, and say, “kind of like this.”