Amsterdam supermarket offers free groceries, life coach to struggling families
A new, extra-special supermarket opened in Wildemanbuurt in Amsterdam Nieuw-West on Tuesday. The Fris Supermarket offers free groceries for vulnerable families, with the only condition that they also accept the help of a life coach from Studiezalen, the foundation behind Fris, Parool reports.
Fris, which translates to “fresh” in English, stands for the fresh produce and the fresh start the supermarket hopes to help families with. Everything starts with groceries, Studizalen founder Abdelhamid Idrissi (33) said to the newspaper. “We want to take away that stress every day. We’ll get you a night’s sleep. That’s the beginning. People need to live, not just survive.”
Studiezalen, which started in 2010 as a few rooms for vulnerable kids to do their homework in, funds the supermarket through crowdfunding and donations from other local businesses, including Vomar, Bakkerij Metalsa, fruit grower Jan Oskam, TommyTomato, and butchery Kaddour, among many more. Fris’ shelves are stocked with everything you’d find in other supermarkets, from pasta to baby diapers, to bicycle locks. But what they’re actually stocked with is stories, Idrissi said to the newspaper.
“Here are all kinds of stories. If we hear that children go to school without breakfast, we provide breakfast. We see children in our study rooms take toilet paper home, so we provide toilet paper. Or people don’t feel fresh and want to look presentable, for example, for a job interview. So we provide toothbrushes, shampoo, and hair gel.”
Fris is not a food bank, Idrissi stressed. “We don’t need proof of poverty, we see the poverty every day in our study rooms. We also don’t hand out packages twice a week, but people can come and shop here themselves every day. That is based on trust. And we keep them for guidance.”
Studiezalen life coaches help people with many things, from looking for a job or internship to signing up for the right benefits or finding the right facilities. In one family, they help with a child being bullied, and in another with addiction problems. The care is as tailor-made as possible, Idrissi said.
Fris and Studiezalen are currently supporting 80 families in Nieuw-West. “The demand is much higher, but whether we can help more families depends on whether we can get more sponsorships,” Idrissi said.
