We did it!!!

We built a new free fridge and community pantry!

It took about a hundred days from deciding to do it, through planning, and finally execution (thread above tracks this). And that is for putting down concrete and electrical. If we did a simple fridge on a pallet, it can be quicker. But even going all out, dang!

So we held the ribbon cutting ceremony. A lot of folks showed up to do the initial stock. Now we'll maintain it and spread the word out to the community. The town has a food resource app. The library maintains a list. I'll add it to our site. The local paper is writing an article.

This is also just the first part of this fridge. They're adding another pantry and an awning to cover it all.

Alright. This one is done. On to the next one!

#solarPunk #solarPunkSunday #freeFridge #foodSecurity #postScarcity #mutualAid

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

We did it!!!

We built a new free fridge and community pantry!

It took about a hundred days from deciding to do it, through planning, and finally execution (thread above tracks this). And that is for putting down concrete and electrical. If we did a simple fridge on a pallet, it can be quicker. But even going all out, dang!

So we held the ribbon cutting ceremony. A lot of folks showed up to do the initial stock. Now we'll maintain it and spread the word out to the community. The town has a food resource app. The library maintains a list. I'll add it to our site. The local paper is writing an article.

This is also just the first part of this fridge. They're adding another pantry and an awning to cover it all.

Alright. This one is done. On to the next one!

#solarPunk #solarPunkSunday #freeFridge #foodSecurity #postScarcity #mutualAid

Update on the new Free Fridge and Community Pantry in town!

They've completed the electrical work and are laying a concrete slab today. They're also bringing in a person to build out a pantry and paint a mural on it.

We have a ribbon cutting ceremony scheduled for December 7th where folks will bring shelf stable food and fresh produce to add to the first stocking of the fridge!

Note: this site really wanted to go all in. You really only need electrical and something to put the fridge on (minimum concrete blocks or a pallet). But these folks decided to put donated funds to it as they are focused on serving the community.

I'll post pictures of the ribbon cutting ceremony!

Also also! Two other sites have expressed interest in hosting a free fridge now that they've heard about this one! Once you build the first one, subsequent ones become easier!

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

Here's some picture's for the concrete slab and electrical outlets for the new Free Fridge in town!

Note: Free fridges don't usually require this level of installation. As long as the fridge has power and a place to sit (even if its on a used pallet), thats good enough.

This church was given a donation with the stipulation that it go to serving the local community, and they decided to install a free fridge and put some infrastructure and accessibility behind it.

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

Update on the new Free Fridge and Community Pantry in town!

They've completed the electrical work and are laying a concrete slab today. They're also bringing in a person to build out a pantry and paint a mural on it.

We have a ribbon cutting ceremony scheduled for December 7th where folks will bring shelf stable food and fresh produce to add to the first stocking of the fridge!

Note: this site really wanted to go all in. You really only need electrical and something to put the fridge on (minimum concrete blocks or a pallet). But these folks decided to put donated funds to it as they are focused on serving the community.

I'll post pictures of the ribbon cutting ceremony!

Also also! Two other sites have expressed interest in hosting a free fridge now that they've heard about this one! Once you build the first one, subsequent ones become easier!

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

@DoomsdaysCW - Cheers! Easier than a full blown free fridge. Just install and advertise a "Little Free Pantry"

#solarpunk #freefridge

Ha!

Around town, whenever I spoke about free fridges and community pantries, folks kept telling me about a "Little Free Pantry" that was installed by a local Girl Scout troop.

And I finally found it (on the map at least). I need to run by and take a look at it in person!

#solarPunk #mutualAid #girlScouts #freeFridge #foodPantry #foodSecurity

@slanderoid - Just read through the three posts, I think everything sladeroid is doing is amazing!

I'm supporting and spinning up Free Fridges / Community Pantries in my town right now as well.

They're exactly what you are doing. Little free libraries but for food. Give a food, take a food.

https://freedge.org/ has a good map of ones throughout the world, also with some good resources.

We're modeling our's after Richmond, Virginia's Community Fridges, as they're the biggest in our state: https://www.rvacommunityfridges.com/

Little free pantries are much easier to install than full blown fridges (which need power and maintenance), so run with it!!!!

Let me know if you have any questions or need anything. Also post up what you do, I'll be grabbing tips from you as well.

And @jevidl - Absolutely volunteer my time as it relates to this, lol! Cheers for the tag!

#solarPunk #mutualAid #freeFridge #foodSecurity

Alright! Site plan for the new free fridge is completed. They're laying down a concrete slab and really setting this up! This host has received a generous donation and is actually spending money on setting up a free fridge. I love it!

Next steps will be getting an electrician to come out and put in some outlets. Need to check with the county to see if we need building permits as we're laying down concrete and putting up a little structure to protect against sun and rain.

The host is VERY excited and is eager to get this built in the next couple of months.

And new great news! Other churches and organizations are getting wind of this and are looking into setting up their own fridges for their own neighborhoods!!!!

#solarPunk #mutualAid #freeFridge #foodSecurity

Alright! Site plan for the new free fridge is completed. They're laying down a concrete slab and really setting this up! This host has received a generous donation and is actually spending money on setting up a free fridge. I love it!

Next steps will be getting an electrician to come out and put in some outlets. Need to check with the county to see if we need building permits as we're laying down concrete and putting up a little structure to protect against sun and rain.

The host is VERY excited and is eager to get this built in the next couple of months.

And new great news! Other churches and organizations are getting wind of this and are looking into setting up their own fridges for their own neighborhoods!!!!

#solarPunk #mutualAid #freeFridge #foodSecurity

Well this is amazing!!!

We just got our first host that wants to put up a Free Fridge!!!!

I was going to put in a post of how we have multiple leads out and various irons in the fire, but dang, this one came quick! We've been talking to various folks for the past couple of months and there have been various interest, but nothing has been set in stone yet.

So, I posted a couple weeks ago how our Free Fridge and Food Rescue group got featured in the local town paper ( https://infosec.exchange/@tinker/114949623055200806 ) . Turns out various folks read it and were interested, both in the food rescue and in the free fridge aspect.

We have one free fridge in town hosted by a local community garden, but that is completely run by them. We help keep it clean and we help stock and utilize it, but my group was created to build other free fridges throughout town.

And sure enough, a local church read the article and came to our monthly meeting. They invited us to go to their church and tour it and see what they were doing.

They're a small church that is heavy in working with the Food Bank and doing distributions. They recently received a generous donation with the request that the money be used for community service. They're going to source the refrigerator, pantry, and even build out an area to provide cover and a walkway to it.

The location is great. It's accessible via public transit (such that we have here). It's decently walkable and the city is putting in improvements in the next year. They have a good parking lot and a location that is accessible to the public 24/7.

So I've put together a little project plan:

- Go onsite and create rough site plan: Designate location. Measure out area for concrete slab, awning, and potentially walkway
- Get estimates for outside electrical outlet installation, concrete slab / walkway construction, and awning construction
- Contact appropriate municipality / county to sort out any requirements or approvals
- Complete construction
- Source and install fridge and pantry
- Open to community & advertise new location

The head of their food missions has already sourced and purchased the refrigerator. So wow. Next step will be to go back onsite and do a rough site plan. Basically measure out the spot and sort out the concrete pad dimensions.

This is the first time I've done this... so I'll be learning along the way and documenting it for other sites (hopefully) in the future.

This is amazing. Our first fridge for our group and the second for my region!!!

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

There are a lot of resources on Free Fridges and Community Pantries.

The Freedge group has a wonderful site that has resources for finding fridges in your neighborhood or installing new ones:

- Freedge: https://freedge.org/
- Starting a Free Fridge in your Town: https://freedge.org/freedge-yourself/
- Map of current Free Fridges: https://freedge.org/locations/

Some folks have had questions or concerns as it relates to Free Fridges. I have posted my answer to a couple of them below:

Worry about folks "taking advantage" of free food
https://infosec.exchange/@tinker/113765243630873685

Worry about tainted food being placed in the fridge?
https://infosec.exchange/@tinker/113765319396269374

Do free fridge initiatives even work?
https://infosec.exchange/@tinker/113766774842784296

I'll add to this post in the future if I find other resources.

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

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

The article for my town's Free Fridge, Food Rescue, and Indoor Food Gardening group just came out!

You can read the article here: https://fredericksburg.com/news/local/article_49e5b911-4f2a-41a1-b735-a0ddc09e3937.html

(Non-paywalled archive: https://archive.is/AjYvg )

Goes into detail on our efforts to build out Free Fridges throughout town, conduct Food Rescue, and to help folks garden their food indoors. Even interviews the local food bank and discusses our cooperative partnerships with them as well!

#solarPunk #foodRescue #indoorGardening #hydroponics #foodSecurity #foodBank #freeFridge #mutualAid

On the Post-Scarcity Food front. My local group, which covers Free Fridges, Food Rescue, and Indoor Food Gardening - we just got interviewed my our town's local newspaper.

Which is cool.

We're starting to get noticed and more and more folks are joining the group organically.

The group currently has around 65 members in the discord chat. 80ish members (much overlap) on the email newsgroup. We have around 10 folks that have signed up for the food rescue app. And we get 5 to 15 folks in person and via zoom for the monthly meetings. We have a core very active group of around 6 folks with lots of folks hanging in the wing to help as needed.

And we have intentionally NOT recruited or let folks know about us (beyond a couple local events), as we wanted to get some things in place first.

I wanted to make sure that volunteers weren't met with a ghost town, right. I wanted to get the infrastructure in place first.

Well it's in place.

And we have some initial food rescues. And some more coming down the pipe. And some irons in the fire for new free fridge placements.

And the library and food bank is asking us to put together coursework and programming around growing your own food indoors.

So. For as much as I'm fucking nervous, lol. It's time to really start growing.... fuuuuck.

Ha! Funny thing. I was arguing caution and hoping for another month or two before really branching out and a fellow coordinator pushed back and said, fuck that, let's go now!!! HAHAHAHA!!!!! I'm being scared and I've been called out, HAHAHA!!! Which is good. I needed a swift kick in the ass. (honestly, if I hung back too much, this other person would have just gone ahead and done it. I am NOT the only decision maker here, even if I was the one to get it started)..

Alright. Fine. Let's do it, HAHAHAHA!!!!!

Oooooh.... this is happening. Shiiiit!!!

Failure is scary. But success is downright terrifying.

#solarPunk#mutualAid#foodSecurity#freeFridge#foodRescue

On the Post-Scarcity Food front. My local group, which covers Free Fridges, Food Rescue, and Indoor Food Gardening - we just got interviewed my our town's local newspaper.

Which is cool.

We're starting to get noticed and more and more folks are joining the group organically.

The group currently has around 65 members in the discord chat. 80ish members (much overlap) on the email newsgroup. We have around 10 folks that have signed up for the food rescue app. And we get 5 to 15 folks in person and via zoom for the monthly meetings. We have a core very active group of around 6 folks with lots of folks hanging in the wing to help as needed.

And we have intentionally NOT recruited or let folks know about us (beyond a couple local events), as we wanted to get some things in place first.

I wanted to make sure that volunteers weren't met with a ghost town, right. I wanted to get the infrastructure in place first.

Well it's in place.

And we have some initial food rescues. And some more coming down the pipe. And some irons in the fire for new free fridge placements.

And the library and food bank is asking us to put together coursework and programming around growing your own food indoors.

So. For as much as I'm fucking nervous, lol. It's time to really start growing.... fuuuuck.

Ha! Funny thing. I was arguing caution and hoping for another month or two before really branching out and a fellow coordinator pushed back and said, fuck that, let's go now!!! HAHAHAHA!!!!! I'm being scared and I've been called out, HAHAHA!!! Which is good. I needed a swift kick in the ass. (honestly, if I hung back too much, this other person would have just gone ahead and done it. I am NOT the only decision maker here, even if I was the one to get it started)..

Alright. Fine. Let's do it, HAHAHAHA!!!!!

Oooooh.... this is happening. Shiiiit!!!

Failure is scary. But success is downright terrifying.

#solarPunk#mutualAid#foodSecurity#freeFridge#foodRescue

Results of that food rescue route I mentioned! A lot of produce. Neighbors came and grabbed a lot of the veggies when it came in. I put the rest into the fridge for others to grab later.

This was one vendor on one night.

We throw away so much good food.

I'm going to go find more food.

#solarPunk#mutualAid#foodRescue#foodWaste#freeFridge#postScarcity

Momentous Update on the Food Rescue Program!!!

We got our first food rescue!!!! Like official. In the app! Not an adhoc one. And it wasnt me who set this up! Another organizer got our first grocer. I put the route into the app and opened it up for volunteers.

And a community member picked it up!!!!!

We are rescuing food from a grocer and delivering to a free fridge!

Calling it: November 14th of last year (2024) - to now (June 10th 2025). 7 months from idea conception to a formal route / food rescue between a food seller and a food distributor. (With founding a mutual aid group, to growing it, to partnering with a national food rescue org - yay Food Rescue US! - to meeting with a grocer and connecting them to a free fridge all in between)

Now it's time to scale....

#solarPunk#mutualAid#foodSecurity#postScarcity#foodRescue#foodRescueUS#freeFridge