Have you spotted an old fridge on your block, possibly painted in bright colors and surrounded by frequent visitors? You've probably stumbled upon your local community-generated food-sharing program, also known as a community fridge.

Community fridges offer free food — from fresh produce to home-cooked meals — along with sanitary products and other health-related supplies to communities in need, no questions asked. Normally run by volunteers or individuals, the fridges are publicly accessible, and supplies are almost completely sourced from local generosity. While they've been around for years, community fridges have recently gotten more attention as a way for people to support each other in pandemic times.

Community fridges are much more than charity or interesting sidewalk art. They're a prime example of bottom-up, mutual aid initiatives that put resources directly into the hands of communities that need them the most, veering from the model of charity-based food programs, which put the "power" of resource allocation into the hands of the few and often have criteria for who receives aid. As Free99Fridge, a network of "solidarity" fridges in Atlanta, explains on their site, "This differs from a traditional charity, with the goal of empowerment."

There are a variety of models — ones that operate within larger city-wide networks, like those within Los Angeles Community Fridges (LACF), a decentralized network of community fridges run by volunteers, and A New World In Our Hearts NYC, as well as those stocked, cleaned, and managed by individuals.

Read the full article about community fridges by Chase DiBenedetto at Mashable.