I'm looking to build out the Free Fridge & Community Pantries in my town.

I'll continue to update this thread with my progress.

So, the idea is to have nodes throughout town that allow folks to "Give a Food, Take a Food". Similar to "Little Free Libraries" are to books. Folks who have extra food can drop it off there, folks who need food can grab it there.

The focus here is mutual aid, not charity. So, absolutely, if you are food insecure or hungry, utilize it, right. Beyond that though, this is a great piece of infrastructure to share extra food with your neighbors. I will go down to the free fridge we have in town, drop off some of my extra produce that I have grown, and then pick up a can of black beans if I need it for dinner that night. We're meant to contribute AND utilize the free fridge.

There are many ways to create and maintain free fridges, from something as simple as a small box or outdoor cabinet on up to full stand up refrigerators and freezers with an outdoor pantry.

In general, you want it to be a couple of things:
- Accessible to the public
- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- Unmanned
- No restrictions on who can utilize it or take food from it - it should NOT employ any means-testing
- Receive shelf stable food and/or refrigerated food and/or frozen food

Further, you can break up the different groups that are involved in the free fridge:
- The Host
- The Maintainers
- The Community

The Host - provides a location for the fridge and pantry to be installed and accessed. They also provide electricity to power the fridge/freezer

The Maintainers - this would be my group. We source, install, maintain, repair, and clean the fridge, freezer, and pantry.

The Community - contributes food to and utilizes food from the fridge and pantry. This is important. While the host provides the site and the Maintainers keep it operational, neither one has to stock food or coordinate utilization. The community does it themselves.

Having it split up like this is nice. Can folks from the Host group maintain it? Certainly. But extrapolating it allows for ease of use.

So. Keeping it stocked is up to the community. I've seen it stocked by gardeners who have extra produce (Zucchini turns folks into socialists is the joke! You just grow sooooo much you end up LOSING FRIENDS when you try to push it off on others!). I've seen it stocked through Food Rescue efforts. Some families buy extra from the grocery store and this is a great place to drop it off. I've even seen the local Food Bank drop off extra food when they had left overs from a food distribution.

Keeping it utilized is also easy. You don't want the fridge to stay stocked, right. You want it to stay in the fridge for as short a period of time as possible before someone comes and grabs it. Heck! I've seen a food rescue of fresh produce from a farmer's market vendor be dropped off at a free fridge and then claimed by several families even before it had a chance to be placed physically into the fridge! This is ideal. One fridge and pantry needs to serve the local neighborhood. That's many many families. It can only do so if its filled up and then utilized multiple times a day.

Next post, I'll put some resources on starting your own in your town.

#freeFridge #foodScarcity #foodSecurity #postScarcity #solarPunk #mutualAid