Within a ten minute timespan late Tuesday afternoon, half a dozen people stopped by the refrigerator near South First and Dittmar streets to grab a bite to eat.
The fridge is one of five throughout Austin run by the ATX Free Fridge Project. The project, which started during the pandemic to combat rising food insecurity, works like a little library for food: take what you need, leave what you can. No paperwork, no questions.
The fridges also come with a small pantry, a bulletin board for community announcements and shelves for donated clothes.
The project has taken off. Volunteers put sensors on several of the fridges and found they were opened, on average, 300 times a day.
“We hear regularly that when people are going to drop off food, there’s a line that starts behind them of people waiting to get that food,” Stephanie Castleberry, one of the five volunteers heading the project, said. “Some volunteers literally just hand the meals directly to people instead of even putting them in the fridge.”
The fridges are getting plenty of use, but not all of them are treated with care.
Next to cans of crushed tomatoes and vegetable soup at the Dittmar location is a pile of dirty, wrinkled laundry. Trash is strewn about the area. Lannie Lee, who has been stopping by the fridge for years, said recently he doesn’t want to open the fridge without wearing gloves.
“They'll leave the refrigerator open all day long with the door open and there's food in there,” Lee said. “You know, it only takes one person to ruin it for everybody.”
Castleberry said the fridge will close by the end of the month because keeping the area clean has become impossible. The free fridge on Second Street closed late last year for similar reasons.
“We put out the calls to action, we set up text chains to tell people, 'Hey, here’s what’s going on, can you go clean it?' But it’s just not enough,” she said. “We need everyone who’s going to the fridges … to just take that step, take care of it, because Second Street was a huge loss. Dittmar is going to be a huge loss.”
The organization has a spreadsheet on its website where community members can sign up to clean their local fridge, but spots often go unfilled.
Castleberry said she’s hopeful the fridge project will make it through this rough patch. Volunteers have plans to set up three more in Montopolis, Franklin Park and North Austin this year, and are looking to replace the Dittmar fridge somewhere nearby.
“We really need support from those folks, everyone .... people dropping off food or getting food, to help clean up,” she said. “If you want this cool thing to stay here and stay cool, then you gotta put in a little more effort.”
