In the year since Victoria Jayne helped four community refrigerators in Philadelphia work with free food, she has been amazed at how quickly they emptied. Hungry Philadelphians seem to pick up food in every refrigerator they can find: in front of medical offices, art spaces, next to apartment buildings, and even playgrounds.

"The refrigerator turns over every eight hours," she said. "You put something in the evening. You show up the next morning, and it disappears."

Refrigerators are only a small part of the expanding network of community food centers, which have been established in large and small cities across the country. 

During the coronavirus pandemic, due to the drastic changes in the economy in many places, the demand for food banks continues to surge in many places, so local food activists also want to create a small place where anyone can pick up some items at any time Nothing to ask. 

Although this concept has existed for many years, in the past 18 months, the pandemic has inspired the creation of hundreds of new free refrigerators in dozens of cities and made them a kind of existence.

Ernst Bertone Oehninger is responsible for operating freedge.org, the global online list of free refrigerators. He conservatively estimates that there are 400 free refrigerators in the United States, and almost all of them were created in the past 18 months.  

Refrigerators will only continue to proliferate, and some are breaking through different business models and offering other products. 

A refrigerator project in Chicago not only provided food for picking up, but also prepared free produce boxes for local delivery. Another group in Washington State not only provides food, but also health-related products. A food bank in the suburbs of Boston has expanded its traditional physical stores to include free refrigerators in front of the dry cleaners. A refrigerator project in Los Angeles provides bedding and other camping-related items to homeless communities who desire to keep warm.

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, a professor of economics at Northwestern University and a poverty expert, said: “Eliminating the multifaceted problems of hunger in the United States requires a series of plans and methods, and community refrigerators can certainly play an important role. "At the board of directors of the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

Free refrigerators usually follow some fairly simple maxims: "Take what you need and leave what you can do."

The goal is to provide people with reliable food locations, especially in communities with high poverty rates.

"Some of us will go shopping at the grocery store and leave some extras," Jayne said.

Some free refrigerators across the country, sometimes called "freedges", are operated by donated groceries. Others use more cash donations to buy food as gifts. 

Community refrigerators in South Philadelphia rely mainly on staple foods donated by food banks, grocery stores, non-profit organizations, and individuals, such as cooking oil, coffee, grains, and other items. In addition, the organization accepts thousands of dollars in donations every month.

Those who operate free refrigerators rarely have any illusions that they can have a huge and substantial impact across the country. But every bit helps.

A report released by the US Department of Agriculture this year found that more than 10% of American households, or nearly 14 million people, still have no food security. 

According to Feeding America, a non-profit national food bank organization, more than 1.3 million people in Pennsylvania are facing hunger. Philabundance, the largest food bank in Philadelphia, distributed more than 55 million pounds of food last year, serving more than 135,000 people every week. 

Food policy experts say that even a refrigerator network in four locations like southern Philadelphia will have a small but positive impact. One of the many benefits is that most free refrigerators will never close, unlike food banks and pantry that have a distribution time.

Jain said that community building is an important part of the work she and dozens of other volunteers do.

"People need to eat. That's what it's all about," she said. "For me, meeting the needs of my neighbors is very important." 

Kristin Guerin, who opened her first free refrigerator in Miami more than a year ago, admits that the efforts of the free refrigerator organizers are insignificant compared to the scope of the problem. But she is proud of her small efforts to alleviate hunger.

"Most of the work we must refocus on is to deal with this work to ensure that we work for long-term change," she said. "Community refrigerators are band-aids. The ultimate goal is to end food insecurity."

Although Philadelphia’s always-on refrigerator network is one model, another model operates in the Englewood community in the South Side of Chicago. Dion’s Dream Fridge is open 5 days a week, 7 hours a day.

The refrigerator is run by 30-year-old Dion Dawson, who said he started opening a shop on the street across from the playground more than a year ago. The organization mainly accepts cash donations rather than food gifts. It prefers to buy food from retailers. Dawson said that unlike most single refrigerators or refrigerator networks, his team is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose budget has grown from $20,000 to $300,000 in the past year.

"We realized that we had to fill our refrigerators with brand new products so that we could stabilize the quality and ensure that it had the greatest impact," he said. "Since then, since September 11, 2020, we have kept refrigerators every day. We do not accept donations or mutual assistance."

Dawson offers a variety of agricultural products, including "bananas, strawberries, fresh cucumbers, baby carrots, red or green grapes, celery, butter lettuce, limes, lemons, apples, oranges and white potatoes."

He said that he personally knows what it feels like to be food insecure because he was homeless before joining the navy.

"It's about solving problems and ensuring that I run my organization with all the pillars that are important to me and the community. It's about transparency, quality and consistency," he said. "We focus on the end user experience, and we focus on solving problems rather than focusing on problems."

In recent months, Dawson has done something that almost all other free refrigerators do not have-built a free product delivery system for those who like to deliver products to their doorsteps. He said that the plan was very successful and it is expected to expand the number of deliveries from 150 to 250 before the end of the year.

Some free refrigerators are also expanding to provide other items. Karissa Halstrom expanded the idea of ​​a free refrigerator in Vancouver, Washington, to include other items in the three locations she launched since July.

Halstrom said other health-related items are in the non-refrigerator pantry next to the refrigerator, such as menstrual pads, tampons, condoms and masks.

Similarly, Melissa Moulton Church, who works with Los Angeles Community Refrigerators, said that there is a place in her network that accepts used bedding, such as sleeping bags and tents — and they soon Will be sold out.

"They were attacked, which is great, and when you realize how many people have a cold in a city like Los Angeles, you feel upset," she said. "This is an unsatisfied and unsatisfied need."

It’s worth noting that unlike Dawson’s location in Chicago, the Vancouver Free Refrigerator Project rarely accepts cash donations. Even so, they are used to build shelters around the refrigerator.

"We want people to bring more spirits," Halstrom said. "We are at least trying to prioritize food rescue. We like the idea that people have too many things to bring with them."

Halstrom said that earlier this year, the organization raised more than $4,500 on GoFundMe, of which two-thirds were used for construction materials, and the remaining less than one-third.

"We will organize a clothing and food campaign in winter," she said. "We have also been discussing with people who have land to make a community garden. It would be great to grow food and fill the refrigerator with fresh produce. My personal goal is to have as many [refrigerators] as possible in Vancouver. One year later, I Hope we have more."

Correction (November 24, 2021, 11:53 AM EST): A previous version of this article incorrectly explained Victoria Jayne's role in the refrigerator in the South Philadelphia community. She is a volunteer, but she did not put the organization's refrigerator in the community.

Cyrus Farivar is a reporter for the NBC News Technology Investigations Department in San Francisco.