Free Grocery Store

About

Free Grocery Store (@gnvfgs) is a mutual aid food pantry that serves Gainesville and its immediate surrounding neighborhoods. As long as the capacity exists, FGS distributes free food to anyone who asks, without asking for ID, proof-of-need, or citizenship status. The cornerstone and most novel aspect of Free Grocery Store is its delivery service - started as a COVID-related necessity due to social distancing, loss of work, and more homebound households, we continue to deliver biweekly to over 100 households across Gainesville. FGS also operates a weekly in-person distribution, a community garden that diverts its yield entirely to the pantry, and occasional distributions directly in target neighborhoods.

FGS began originally in 2019 as a small food diversion project hosted by the Civic Media Center, serving about 20-30 people per week using "waste" from a local grocery store. At the onset of the COVID pandemic, FGS was rapidly reorganized into the delivery service, pantry, garden, and neighborhood distributions that people know it for. FGS sources food from Bread of the Mighty food bank and allied grocery store, and it continues to be entirely community-supported.

Currently, Free Grocery Store serves anywhere between 200-300 people across 60-100 households by delivery, about 30 households by walkup, and 30-50 people per neighborhood distribution.

Renz's role

Much of the reorganization in March 2020 was facilitated by Renz. They set up a volunteer sign-up system, sourcing from Bread of the Mighty, a client database, and client services including intake and checkins. They also were one of a handful of facilitators managing in-person operations. Currently, they still facilitate in-person operations, manage volunteers, and oversee the non-profit incorporation process, creation of a community fridge program, expansion of neighborhood distributions, and website content creation. Most of what they do is succinctly written as "coordinating".

Neighborhood Distributions

During the spring of 2022, FGS started experiencing "growing pains" with supply issues and volunteer shortages, so we decided to diversify our means of distribution by hosting neighborhood distributions. These are distributions facilitated by Bread of the Mighty where they deliver food for us to distribute in a central, walkable point within the neighborhood we target. It operates as a low-labor low-stress alternative to the logistics of packing and delivering orders. As of August 2022, FGS has served Holly Heights, a neighborhood off Tower Road and SW 8th Ave known for high eviction rates, housing instability, and crime. It and many other affordable neighborhoods off Tower Road have just been acquired by SAR Apartment Capital, a Miami-based firm with a history of flipping previously affordable developments.

As an aid to identifying other neighborhoods, Renz undertook a suitability analysis to identify specific locations based on 4 factors that predict food insecurity:

• high Black and Hispanic population
• low median household income
• high proportion receiving public assistance
• no college education

as well as areas with high distances away from supermarkets - food deserts at scales relative to the metropolitan area.

To maximize our utility, we also identified areas with high concentrations of residential units, as many target block groups are also rural or sparsely populated for their size.

The suitability index identified several block groups, all in East Gainesville, that rated within the top decile for high predicted food insecurity. Within these, several neighborhoods were identified as suitable for distribution.