Not me wanting to pick up mobile app development so I can build my own Food Rescue app.
These apps have very basic functionality. I've looked at a couple now. From open source apps to multi-thousand dollar a year apps designed by "non-profits". I think I could make a better one.
Only issue would be backend server processing and space... it wouldn't be a lot. Just a database.
I could do this...
Hashtag: I haven't really thought this through
Ok! It's a solid app and it works.
It's open sourced with a fun anti-capitalist license: https://gitlab.com/food-rescue-alliance/tomato/-/blob/development/LICENSE
It allows admins / organizers to:
- create a Donor/Contributer profile
- create a Dropoff/Distributor profile
- create a food rescue pickup between a Contributor and a Distributor site at a specific time during the day for specific days.
It allows users / gleaners to:
- See all the available food rescue pickups
- Read notes on the pickup and dropoff locations
- See a map of both sites and the route between the two.
The app is a self-described MVP - Minimum Viable Product. It works but does not have a lot of features. It hasn't had an update in a couple of years, but it is actively used (there's not much to update unless someone discloses vulns or they add a new feature).
They're talking about raising money and hiring a software engineer, but this is definitely a good candidate for a hackathon or FOSS programming program.
Some things that I would like to see (if I or other could code it for them):
- Ability of users filter open food rescue pick-ups by distance from their home to the pickup location, or their home to the dropoff location
- Ability of users to filter for specific days of the week (right now they can see specific dates, but if they want to see all shifts for the next several Mondays - for example - they aren't able to filter it).
One problem that I haven't figured out, is if a user / volunteer / gleaner commits to a recurring shift, I can't see how they drop their commitment to that shift. I've emailed FRA to see if I'm missing something.
Long and short, it's lacking some features that I've seen in other food rescue coordination software, but these software apps don't have a lot of features or functionality to begin with. Also the other apps seem to be for profit (even if under the aegis of "non-profit") and often have a dedicated software engineer. This is a FOSS app made by a bunch of volunteers.
Long and short, it absolutely beats a manually maintained spreadsheet! And it's not far behind other apps that have a dedicated software team.
Thread 2/2
Alright... let's test out this Food Rescue coordination software....
Rootable: https://rootable.org/
Source Code: https://gitlab.com/food-rescue-alliance/tomato
FRA: https://www.boulderfoodrescue.org/food-rescue-alliance/
I reached out to FRA and spoke with them about joining their alliance. They send me creds and a test server to check out their web app for coordinating food rescue. They have a second meeting with my entire group at our next in-person meeting.
So far, I love their ethos and their approach.
I'm going to go test the software and reply to this post on my thoughts.
Thread: 1/2
I can fuck with this license: https://gitlab.com/food-rescue-alliance/tomato/-/blob/development/LICENSE
Small anecdote regarding Food Rescue in our town.
We have a bakery that we've started working with. They bake fresh each day and at night they would have to throw away anything they didn't sell.
So we partner with them every evening and pick up the baked goods that they would normally throw away and either take it to another org that makes hot food for folks or to the free fridges in town for people to pick up on their own.
They call us each evening before close to let us know if they have any food for pickup. If they don't call, it's generally because they sold out that day (yay for them!).
An interesting pattern emerged though. We would get regular calls on some days and other days were completely silent. We would never receive calls on those evenings. Week after week.
So I asked about it one time when doing a pickup and the baker told us that those days were staffed by a woman who had experienced a lot of trauma. She specifically would not call even if they had food to pick up because she never wanted to be in a position where she was alone with a man after close.
That seemed very prudent, reasonable, and safe of her given her circumstances and experience.
We took the time to learn about our neighbors and worked with the woman to meet her needs for safety and comfort. We found out that she was much more comfortable with another woman or femme presenting person doing the pick up. We found a couple of gleaners that were willing to do the pickup and they went over during business hours when it was slow and just got to know the baker.
They built trust and established safety guidelines and now we have regular calls during these evenings as well.
The lady was very very very happy that she could help feed people and was very happy that we were willing to work with her to find a solution that brought her comfort, peace of mind, and actual safety.
I thought y'all might like to hear that. We'll find a way to take care of everyone.
I found ANOTHER free fridge and community pantry in town!!!
It wasn't listed on any map sites! Found out through word of mouth!
It's held at the local university!
In fact, AmeriCorps helped set it up! That's cool. Didn't know that was a thing. I now have more people to meet and talk to as I build out my mutual aid network!
I just spent about 45 minutes talking to the coordinator there about it, seeing how they do things, learning from them.
In addition to being a node for the community to "give a food / take a food," they act as a node for the regional food bank (they get about 500 lbs of food a week) and they also act as a node for food rescue from a nearby grocery store! I'm adding them as a distribution node for our food rescue efforts as well.
In addition to the free fridge and community pantry, they are also a distribution node for various living supplies such as clothing, toiletries, school supplies, etc.
Here's more information about them: https://academics.umw.edu/communityengagement/for-students/get-involved/eagle-resource-closet/
So that makes two free fridges in town. I'm going to add their information to various lists and maps.
We still need to build out more. We're contacting various places right now to expand!
Just did a donut run and dropped them off at the community fridge. The lady at the donut store saved one just for me. When I got to the fridge I noticed someone else had dropped off a massive amount of premade meals. Vacuumed sealed with best by dates into the 2026's. These were premium healthy and tasty meals. Neighbors have a healthy meal and dessert. Made me happy.
Really cool update!
So we had our first win on finding a place that was interested in food rescue... the donut place (see above thread), right?
Right now, I've just been taking them to the Free Fridge each night.
Two things, one someone else has stepped up and is interested in helping glean - grabbing the food at the bakery and then dropping it off at the distribution point.
That's awesome.
Next... and this is amazing... I reached out to a local church that serves breakfast once a week. Asked them if they were interested in getting free fresh donuts for that. They said they were! So once a week, the night before breakfast, IF... we have donuts available, we drop them off at that church instead of the fridge.
Oh... and they're interested in putting a fridge outside of their church as well! Still gotta talk to their leadership and see what all we have to do, but it's a solid lead!!!
Just a little at time... and it keeps growing.
Ok, been a bit since I gave a Food Rescue Program update.
We're still in onboarding for Food Rescue US. I pushed back on some of the contract language and we're sorting it out. Nothing major and they're awesome, it just takes some time.
In the mean time, I've spun up a web site, a discord chat, and a monthly meeting at the library!
We held our first in person meeting and it was a major success! We're pushing Food Rescue initiatives as well as expanding our Free Fridge program!
Folks had amazing ideas and have already started running down those leads.
I told them I'm not the leader. I'll facilitate and help guide and help remove obstacles and provide ideas but I can't do it all and they shouldn't wait on me to approve anything.
Ideas are put up to the group to discuss and shy of any major ethical concerns, usually folks gather up others and go and get it done.
This is going really well.
What a beautiful morning.
Let's see what opportunities we have to stick a wrench into the gears of fascism with one hand...
...and commit acts of feeding, clothing, sheltering, and protecting people with the other.
Time to bring out the *punk* in Solar Punk.
Great News!!!
We got approved to work with https://foodrescue.us !!!
This gives us access to their coordination software and web app for free!
We can use the app to sign up food contributors & food distributors. Then volunteers can sign up to pick up from one and drop off to the other (basically logistics).
We can also operate under their aegis which gives us local credibility and also allows us to use their 501c3 non-profit status. So anyone donating to us can use it as a tax writeoff. They also provide our donors/contributors with quarterly and yearly statements for tax purposes. There's some other offerings, but thats the chunk!
A food rescue group from DC has already reached out to us to offer support and guidance!
It'll take around a week to get onboarded and then we'll start using it to scale out.
While waiting for the paperwork to go through for that national food rescue org, I'm still going to do food rescue manually.
Another donut haul! I dont know how many donuts. Lost count.
Anyhow. had to find space in the free fridge for it. Folks had added even more fresh veggies and bread and salads, so I had to get creative making room for my deserts. 
Edit: Ignore the lighting in the fridge. It was night time and I used a flash. Makes things weird colors. Anyhoo.
A couple folks have brought up a great concern regarding "Free Fridges" and Post-Scarcity Mutual Aid Food Distribution:
(I will not link the specific threads here as to discourage brigading).
Example concern: "It's funny how few of these projects last. I am an old school liberal where we recognize that intentions are not enough. Stuff has gotta work, and that leaves out a lot of hope-cope stuff like free stuff."
Example concern: Post-scarcity programs have been tried over & over. They run into the same issues. 80% decent folk vs 20% selfish sociopaths. [...] Free food outlets get vandalized by NIMBY's to "discourage the wrong sort. Volunteers burn-out & tire of those misusing facilities meant for the common good"
The general concern is that these initiatives "fail." And that the existence of this fail state is enough to discourage even attempting it in the first place.
A couple thoughts:
1) No they don't. Many initiatives fail. Many succeed. Sooo... yay life.
2) A common tech-bro / entrepreneur refrain is "I am a serial entrepreneur." or "Fail Fast, Fail Often, Fail Everywhere". Capitalistic endeavors fail all the time... but that's seen as a good thing there. Why are post-scarcity / mutual aid initiatives held to a different standard?
3) That said, it is important to know WHY those mutual aid / post-scarcity initiatives that fail, do fail. So that we can learn from their mistakes and push for better success. This is a great thought exercise to have.
To go into detail on the above thoughts:
1) It's just not true that all post-scarcity projects and mutual aid efforts fail. My specific free fridge project is in its third year and we're beginning new initiatives to spread and install new fridges. Richmond's free fridges are on their fifth year. Food Not Bombs was established in the 1980's. The NAACP was founded in 1909. So... like... what do you mean fail? Have some projects started that are no longer here, absolutely... but how is that different from any other human endeavor? Which brings me to the next point:
2) Capitalist and for-profit initiatives fail all the time. How many store fronts do you see that run a business and now run a different business? Approximately 60% of restaurants fail within the first year of operation and 80% fail within the first five years. Tech Bros always say "Fail Fast, Fail Often!" and they're praised for being self-labeled as "Serial Entrepreneurs". Does that stop them from trying? Nope. Folks will spin up a new endeavor again and again. Good for them!
Even if I die tomorrow... and fail at "staying alive"... I will have fed people. I have ALREADY SUCCEEDED in feeding people. I have fed people through the food bank. I have fed people through hot meal initiatives. I have fed people through this free fridge project. I have fed people through food rescue. I have fed people by growing hydroponics and giving that away for free. I have fed people by giving them a five dollar bill on the side of the road.
I have already succeeded.
And I will continue to succeed by growing out these initiatives.
3) These "you're gonna fail so don't even try" comes from two places. The first is malicious. They don't want you to succeed, so they tell you you can't. These are discouraging and depressing and I take a step back, feel sad, take a nap, then get up and continue on trying to ignore what they said (it sucks though, and reading these comments hurts, but whatcha gonna do?).
The second set are people that have failed at (or seen fail) post-scarcity initiatives that they wished would have succeeded. They are discouraged and are either venting their discouragement OR are warning you that you might fail in an effort to hope you prepare for it so you succeed.
This is fine.
We can heed this.
For me, in particular, I am not discouraged by temporary set backs. We had a threat of my fridge being shut down recently. We talked to the host and it's staying up (for now). But if it did go down, we would have built another one elsewhere. In fact, this little fright has spurred us to intentionally build elsewhere so that we don't have a SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE. Great. Resiliency.
So let's look at why mutual aid fails. Dean Spade in his book "Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next)" devotes entire chapters to analyzing this, but I'll only use a couple paragraphs here for the sake of brevity. These are my observations. Research more on your own!
Mutual Aid / Post-Scarcity often fails due to a couple reasons. Namely burnout and discouragement. If you treat mutual aid like charity, it will fail. If you pour all of yourself into it and do not take, you will dry up. If you push yourself further than you can, you will burn out.
You know what. You can burn out in your job, too, right? I would argue you burn out more often in capitalist initiatives because your managers treat you like a consumable and burn you out and then replace you. I would argue that I burn out and see burn out LESS in mutual aid efforts.
But still: You cannot over extend yourself.
I know it seems like I do a lot.
I don't.
I sleep a fuuuuck ton. My brain failed a while back (burnout in capitalism... yay). There are times when I can't do anything.
So I only work what I can and I only pursue that which fulfills me.
This is important. Me, personally, I LOVE food programs. I get dopamine rushes by doing it. If I tried to do voter registration or push city-council to do stuff, I would die. So I don't do that. Find the thing that really interests you and focus on that one thing. That frees up others to focus on their thing. Don't try to solve ALL of the world's problems. Focus on one simple thing and do that, when you can, as you can, and to the SUSTAINABLE effort that you can.
Further, I join or create initiatives that involve OTHER PEOPLE. I make sure that I'm part of a greater team where any one of us doesn't have to do much and the initiative continues on even if many of us stop working for a while. These initiatives take effort, sure, and even continued and intentional effort, but many hands make small work. The neat thing about community... is you have a community.
Lastly, I PERSONALLY USE the mutual aid efforts I build.
Again, not charity. MUTUAL aid. Mutual. Mutual means both ways.
I give to my free fridge and I TAKE from my free fridge. The free fridge provides me free food too!
The Olio App (used in the UK and some of Canada and elsewhere), encourages their Food Rescue Heroes to take 10% of what they rescue. So just by picking up food rescue, you immediately gain free food for yourself!
That's mutual aid. You are building an apparatus that makes YOUR life easier. If it makes your life easier, you're libel to continue at it, aren't you?
There are other aspects as to why *some* mutual aid fails and they're important to understand and account for.
But do not fail by not starting.
Fail by trying and then stopping after a while. Even temporary projects have succeeded while they were running. That is a worthwhile effort.
Someone dropped off a massive food rescue haul to our free fridge and community pantry today.
They're not part of my program and we're not sure who's doing it. This is awesome. It means there are others outside of our volunteer group that does maintenance on the fridges and outside of the group that I'm working with to build out our formal food rescue program.
This is huge.
This means we have successfully built post-scarcity *infrastructure*!!!
Folks are using our fridges both to contribute and to utilize. Folks that have nothing to do directly with the core group of maintainers. Wow.
We need to build more free fridges. This one is running out of room.
Ok! I snagged the domain https://fxbg.food
Put up a landing page. Will update later.
I get to buy a new domain name and spin up a new web site for our food rescue & free fridge group!!!
I *LOVE* New Domain Day!!!!
Seen in one of my discord chats:
(Note: This isn't my town, but its a larger city near by that does food rescue. I just love the interaction!)
Ok! Had a technical demo of the web app for food rescue.
I think we're going to go with them.
Solid desktop app that scales well for mobile.
Its a lightweight org with a small budget but they're doing a lot with it. Feature rich currently and does everything i need it to do so far as coordinating between the food rescue sites, the food distribution sites, and the gleaners connecting the two.
Once we get it up and running officially, i'll post it here.
@catsalad - Yeah!!!
The etymology of the word "gleaner" and "gleaning" is interesting as well.
Originally it meant people that would go through a farmer's field and pick up any "left over" crop after it was harvested. So the farmer would reap what they sowed and bundle it all up and leave and whatever scraps were left behind on the ground was free for anyone to come grab it as free food.
Gleaning has deep roots in Jewish and Christian faiths as well (and many others). Here are two example verses that describe it:
Leviticus 19:9-10
‘Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger.
Ruth 2:2-3
And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after one in whose sight I may find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” So she departed and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to the portion of the field belonging to Boaz"
So modern day gleaning is similar. It takes up the left over of what's not sold but is still good to eat and distributes it to the hungry.
Update on my Food Rescue Initiative for my local town!!!
Two Things.
One, I've been getting hooked up with the local mutual aid crowd in my town and met some wonderful people recently!!! One of them is an organizer and is very very interested in creating more Free Fridges throughout town annnnnnd is very interested in setting up a Food Rescue program!
So her and I have been teaming up to get it done.
Two, we just had a meeting with a national (United States) group that has their own web app for coordinating between food contributors (the places that create the food and would otherwise throw out the good food that wasn't sold), food distributors, and the gleaners / volunteers who connect the two... basically logistics.
It was a good meeting and we may start to work under their aegis.
We're doing a technical demo of the web app this week hopefully.
If we decide to go with them, I'll put the update here.
I'm excited!!!
