The Food GRID

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The Food GRID is a product of a non-profit called Hunger Free Dallas County.

It encompasses many various projects.

One of these projects involves making community fridges more prevalent in Dallas County.

We encourage these to be placed in libraries, city halls, and various community centers everywhere.

We do not restrict anyone from accessing fridges. Income is not checked. Anyone can take food whenever they want.

We make this possible by rescuing food from grocery stores and gas stations.

They throw out food which doesn't meet standards or will expire soon.

We intercept that, and our app lets volunteers know where to pick up food and which community fridge to bring it to.

My job is to collect fridge usage data. I did this by creating Wi-Fi-enabled trackers with 3D-printed enclosures.

This data is helpful in applying for grants from the county, which allows us to invest in more community fridges.

The hardware details, MCU firmware, and cloud software code are open-source: fridge-tracker-hfdc