Luis Zambrano, Fort Myers News-Press
Mon, June 27, 2022
Forty years ago, a family with their daughter came to the city of Cape Coral after using all their money to buy a plumbing supply store.
They were a family of first-generation Cuban Americans from New Jersey, surviving on inexpensive groceries like rice and beans in the first few years of arriving here.
"Not being able to have the luxury of having money, and so sometimes we were hungry," Dionne Lopez, 52, said.
Lopez, who runs Lee County Plumbing & Supply now, started a community fridge in November 2020, before Thanksgiving, to help Cape Coral residents who were suffering because of the pandemic.
"Nobody should have an empty stomach, so when that pandemic started, and people lost their jobs, and they couldn't go out and buy food and so forth, we started the refrigerator," Lopez said.
Dionne Lopez who runs Lee County Plumbing & Supply, started a community fridge in November of 2020, before Thanksgiving, to help Cape Coral residents who were suffering because of the pandemic.
The community fridge, located at 532 Southeast 47th Terrace, provides free food and is open 24/7 to any Cape Coral residents who are in need.
People are free to take what they need, and volunteers can donate and place food and canned goods inside or on the shelves. No raw meat or expired food is accepted.
While the fridge was a welcome addition to the city, its usage declined since 2020 as Lopez couldn't manage both the fridge and her business until she got help from her now collaborator, Gabrielle Ferraro, 28.
From the elderly to people with families and kids, even some pregnant women, there was a need for the fridge in Cape Coral, Ferraro said.
Ferraro owns Double Dee's Munchies, a food truck, and she met Lopez in November 2020.
"She has a big propane tank and I stopped and started talking to her, and she had the fridge out front, and she told me about it and I was like obsessed with it. This is so great," Ferraro said.
She kept tabs on the community fridge, and when she noticed a dip in activity Ferraro pitched in to run the advertising and help manage the fridge two weeks ago.
"I was trying to figure out a way to give back, so I reached out to her and just said, 'Hey, I think I can help. Like, I have the connections of like being able to get this, like, blown up,'" Ferraro said.
Using her connections, she started a Facebook page and TikTok last Monday, and they have both seen a surge in donations and people coming and going since last week.
"On Facebook, the first post I made has over 400 shares," Ferraro said.
Katie Seaver, 31, of Cape Coral, helps restore a refrigerator being used as a food supply for local residents. Dionne Lopez who runs Lee County Plumbing & Supply, started a community fridge in November of 2020, before Thanksgiving, to help Cape Coral residents who were suffering because of the pandemic.
Cape Coral has a population of 204,510 and a poverty rate of almost 10%, according to the U.S. Census.
Julie Ferguson, executive director of Cape Coral Caring Center, a nonprofit agency providing food and utility assistance to Cape Coral residents, said hardships are felt in Cape Coral for working families.
"Cape Coral kind of has the haves and the have-nots. We have very wealthy people, and then we have kind of the middle income and then we do have kind of the working families that find it very difficult," Ferguson said.
"When you are supposed to spend no more than 30% of your income on rent or mortgage, for our working family that is not an easy thing, and in this community with rents being a minimum of about $2,200 a month," She added.
Lopez said she sees many long-time residents suffering the most in her area.
"There is a big variety of people that we see," Lopez said. "We see a few of the homeless guys that come every day. People that are trying to get back on their feet."
She hopes to continue doing what she can for her community, and that maybe someone from North Cape Coral can make something similar to what she's doing.
"I can't feed everybody, but the communities stepped in," Lopez said. "I'm hoping that maybe somebody north from here is seeing this and say, 'Hey, I'm going to try it.'"
Luis Zambrano is a Watchdog/Cape Coral reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. You can reach Luis at Lzambrano@gannett.com or 239-266-5604. Follow him on Twitter @Lz2official.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Cape Coral businesswomen fight food insecurity with community fridge
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