On a section of Kammerer Avenue in San Jose, California, you’ll find a white refrigerator, adorned with paintings of garlic and carrots by local street artists, sitting right on the sidewalk. Inside, you might find gallons of juice, cartons of eggs, loaves of bread and a drawer full of vegetables all for the taking, at no cost. The fridge was set up by Cheetah, a wholesale grocery delivery startup, as a way to reduce the company’s food waste and give that food directly to Bay Area residents in need.
This effort, which Cheetah calls its #FoodGiving Campaign, was inspired by the community fridges that have popped up in New York City during the pandemic. Refrigerators full of free food have appeared on streets from Brooklyn to the Bronx, a neighborhood mutual aid solution to food insecurity, which has only gotten worse throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cheetah has regularly donated perishable items that are nearing their best-by date to local food banks on a weekly basis, Moran says. “The idea of the community fridges takes that a step further, because it brings the food donation all the way down to the individual,” she adds. “By placing the fridge in the street near nonprofit organizations or in public locations, anyone who has a need can step up to the fridge at their own convenience and take what they want.”
What’s available in the fridges will change depending on what’s happening in the Cheetah warehouse. Cheetah will restock the refrigerators each week—the company’s delivery vans that travel all over the Bay Area make that an easy process—but community members and local restaurants are also encouraged to fill them with their extra food. There’s no set timeline for how long these community fridges will operate: Moran sees it as a long-term project.
Cheetah has set up two community fridges so far—one in San Jose and another in Oakland—both on properties owned by CityTeam, a religious nonprofit that provides housing and meals to the homeless. The company plans to set up more, it just needs more donated locations. “We believe that we actually have the ability to operate [community fridges] at a much bigger scale than individuals could,” Moran says. “We’re willing to finance the fridges, we would love to commission more fridges to be decorated by artists, we just need more locations.”