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Sharing Fridge

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”The miracle is this: the more we share the more we have.”

Leonard Nimoy

Information

A Sharing Fridge is a refrigerator located in a public space, into which anyone can bring food and from which anyone can take food.

It is ideal for sharing food and goods which need to be refrigerated, however it is purely up to the community to decide what they consider relevant to share. It is essential that these fridges are kept clean, the food is being monitored and ensured to be safe, and that they are not abused (e.g. that nobody profits from the food).

As Helpi believes that local people know the best how to make this initiative as successful as possible, the form and the location of the centers fully depends on communities, unless the advice of Helpi is requested. The location might be anything from a small community center, a place near a church or public institution (Town house or such) or shopping mall etc. Communities shall decide what goods they want to share using the fridge, based on local legislation and needs of the community.

The type of the fridge is again up to the community or project initiator, as they know the best what options might be available and are the most appropriate in their environment. Ideally it should be both energetically efficient, but also robust, damage resistant and affordable.

There might be, however, at least couple of basic requirements:

  • It must be accessible to all members of the community and not discriminate anybody;
  • Maintenance, cleaning, monitoring the content of the fridge and securing it against theft must be ensured to some degree;
  • Safe installation and safe content of the fridge must be ensured at all times;
  • In case it is located outside, it should be resistant against rain and bad weather

Examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_fridge

Gallery

Fight hunger
and malnutrition

Almost 800m people on the world are malnourished and the same amount is living in extreme poverty from earnings below the international poverty line of $1.90/day.

Less wasting,
more sharing

There are 1.3bn tons of food thrown away every year – this is one third of overall world’s food production. The biggest food waste comes from households, therefore these could be the biggest contributors to sharing their food..

Helping
the environment

Liquidation of food waste represent tremendous costs and burden to the environment.

Want to build one?

Find out more about How Helpi works or directly Submit your Project!