It has been really wonderful to learn about how these fridges operate and about the people who make them happen. While I love learning about these people and the communities they serve, I also find it disappointing that these fridges need to exist to feed people. The joy that I feel watching these people come together to serve and even create communities, is always matched with a feeling of profound sadness that in the wealthiest nation in the world (a place that produces so much food waste) so many people have to rely on these fridges. I hope that this archive and the community it serves continues to thrive past the pandemic, but also that this project becomes more about eliminating food waste than serving an active need from communities.

Last week I finally felt like I had a concrete picture of what our archive might look like for the first time and it was a great relief. I think I was more worried about arriving to a final ‘product’ than I realized. Now we can look forward to building on our vision and define how we approach the following steps. It is not easy to work on a project that involves diverse groups from the community and a diverse team of different backgrounds, skills, availability or commitment. I think we have fallen into some level of routine in accomplishing assignments and we have a shared vision. The next challenge might be for us to keep things simple and manageable when working with such a large and diverse group of participants. I am absolutely delighted that I got to design our logo and that I will be more involved with the design end of things once we have our site up and running.