Riverdale artist Ian Sullivan creates mural for Friendly Fridge Foundation's anniversary

What's amazing is people will come to the fridge as a visitor and then come back again and again as part of the community it has created.”

Selma Raven

On an infernally hot day in mid-July along the Manhattan College parkway, a wall was slowly turning green.

This was stage one of the vision for a new mural by Riverdale-native artist Ian Sullivan, supported by a small team of volunteers. 

Commissioned by Riverdale couple Sarah Allen and Selma Raven of the Friendly Fridge Foundation, whom Sullivan has known since childhood through Raven’s son — the mural aims to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the thriving community fridge located just off the parkway at the West 242nd Street station. 

Sullivan has always been an artist — drawing by age three, and gilding the city with his designs by 11, influenced by the bold line illustration of anime as well as the rooftop graffiti visible from the 1 train. Following this passion, he attended the Pratt Institute to pursue a formal education in illustration and graphic design.

Known for his recent collaborations with Nike and One World Trade Center among others, Sullivan’s artwork has graced locations from a 60-foot stretch of Atlantic Avenue to shows at Christie’s Auction House.

For the mural, green was an obvious choice to represent the fridge’s commitment to freshness and vitality. Over the next few days, Sullivan will add layers of swirling illustrations, incorporating hidden words and symbols that resonate with the fridge’s community impact.  

During the pandemic, around 130 community fridges emerged to meet the city’s magnified needs, but only a handful have persisted. Allen credits the lasting success of the parkway fridge to the dedication of its volunteers, optimal proximity to the 1 train and Van Cortlandt park, and more than 25 partnerships with local schools, restaurants and food pantries. 

Beyond their roles in special education and programming, Allen and Raven themselves contribute 40 hours a week to the project, fundraising, grant-writing and coordinating deliveries. 

The origins of the fridge are deeply personal. Raven’s eldest son, Michael, a food activist, died in 2013. During the pandemic, a mutual friend of Allen and Raven founded the city’s fourth community fridge in Harlem, inspiring the couple to start the fifth to honor Michael’s commitment to food access in the Bronx.

For Raven, the highlight of the project is seeing her son’s vision realized, and witnessing the community come together to combat food insecurity.

“What’s amazing,” she said, “is people will come to the fridge as a visitor and then come back again and again as part of the community it has created.”

Inside the fridge lies a microcosm of the community — zucchinis from a local pantry, bread from a nearby school, bagels from Riverdale Bagels and pizza from just up the street. 

Some items are even traceable to individual community members. Jerome McCabe, who has been volunteering with the Friendly Fridge Foundation since 2020, became known for making soup every Friday during the colder months using surplus produce from the fridge. Since the summer, this has become a fruit salad. 

The fridge’s primary collaborator is an organization called Sharing Excess, which donates four to six pallets of produce per week. While the fridge accepts pantry items, its priority is in stocking fresh produce, both a notoriously expensive and critical good in the borough with the highest rate of diabetes and heart disease.

Despite its small footprint, the fridge now distributes more fresh produce than any local pantry. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, when it receives its largest donations, it serves close to 500 people. Approximately 40 percent of visitors are senior citizens, some without kitchens, making the fridge’s prepared meals especially invaluable. Another 10 percent are migrants, who often lack access to information on food and job security. 

Allen emphasized the fridge’s mission transcends basic food distribution; it aims to build and celebrate community while reducing food waste to benefit the environment. She believes job development initiatives are most essential to combat food insecurity in the region. 

Many visitors have been connected with jobs and resources through word of mouth while at the fridge — an aspect Allen and Raven plan to enhance by adding a bulletin board with local job listings. Opposite the fridge is a small library, and nearby, a resting area with chairs on a beautified traffic island. 

Once the mural is complete, the area will be fully transformed, reflecting the success of a project continuing to enhance greater Riverdale’s quality of life.