Community fridge a big hit with thirsty workers

Fikra Yel and her family say they are happy to do their small part to help workers in her community this Ramadan.

From left, Tariq Ajaib, Mohammed Israr and Chaudary Latif, all from Pakistan and working as gardeners, taking some water and food from a fridge in the garage of the Yel family villa. Jeffrey E Biteng Show more

DUBAI // For two years Fikra Yel and her family have maintained a large fridge outside their villa, keeping it well stocked with bottles of water for labourers working in the area to pick up at any time of the day if they’re feeling thirsty.

The fridge has proven immensely popular with gardeners and workers in the Meadows neighbourhood where Ms Yel lives.

However, to better provide for people on low-paying jobs this Ramadan, Ms Yel has posted flyers around the community urging her neighbours to donate any excess food from iftars that would otherwise be wasted.

“If there’s going to be leftovers, just put it in the fridge so workers can take it. They’d be so happy to have it and it’s better than just throwing it in the garbage. I know that people tend to cook a lot during this month and there’s sometimes a lot of food that’s going to be wasted,” she said.

“We wanted just to open our fridge to whoever wants to help and make it a community thing.”

The initiative has already proven popular with several residents donating food over the weekend, as well as attracting scores of encouraging comments on a Facebook community board.

Ms Yel, a Moroccan who was brought up in Holland, said her family first started to keep the fridge when they lived in Jumeirah Islands. They brought it with them when they moved to the Meadows in December last year.

Her husband picks up nine 12-packs of water bottles when he does the family’s weekly shopping. That sometimes goes within three days and Ms Yel replaces the water with three or four packs at least twice during the week.

Sometimes she puts out yoghurt, Arabic bread, or sliced watermelon, depending on what is available.

“The fridge is getting empty now so quickly, especially these past few months,” she said. “It’s almost like as soon as I put out the water it gets emptied.”

News of the fridge seemed to have spread quickly. The family told their gardener when they moved in and asked him to tell his friends.

“It seems to be really well known in the community now,” she said. “Some people would see it was water and they’d ask us if it’s free. They’d tell their friends and they’d each take two or three bottles whenever they came.”

Although there was likely to be a significant cost to powering the fridge and keeping it stocked, Ms Yel said the family did not keep a record.

“We do it purely from our religion,” she said. “Islam teaches us that we need to take care of less fortunate people. It’s something so small for us, it’s just water, it’s so cheap. We’re going to the grocery anyway so it’s not a problem to pick up a couple of extra juices. It’s such a small gesture, but they’re so happy with it.”

She said it was her small way of repaying the blessings her family had been given.

“We’re so blessed, we have a really nice house and food on the table every day,” she said. “They work really hard but they don’t have much. So doing something so small isn’t a problem. We don’t count the cost of it, or think about it.”