Cohousing-L Mailing List: Do we need a community freezer?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Oct 6, 2022, at 8:00 AM, Karolyn/Richard Mangeot <richard.mangeot [at] 
> usa.net> wrote:
> 
> Re: Do we need a community freezer?
> 
> At Elderberry, since most of us (18 homes) have downsized and don't have
> stand-alone freezers, we have two freezers in the Common House that are
> largely used for people's personal overflow food storage (garden produce, bulk
> purchases), but also ingredients for community meals and emergency meals we
> make for neighbors (both in and outside Elderberry).

How do you manage them — ensuring that food is stored for proper amounts of 
time, nothing is left abandoned, etc. Things don’t last forever in freezers.

Eleanor Ostrom was once being interviewed on shared commons and what was 
necessary to make it work. She was asked how they manage the refrigerator in 
her office. She said everyone who uses the refrigerator cleans it in a set 
rotation. The list of names is on the wall by the refrigerator with the dates. 
Anyone who uses the refrigerator can see who was responsible last week and 
didn’t clean.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org