UW maps Seattle's growing Little Free Pantry network

Zoom in: A UW team created a tool called PantryMap.org to not only pinpoint locations of dozens of pantries, but also to provide information about what's inside each one.

• The app lets people share what food they've donated and add items to a wish list for each location.

What they're saying: "We know that there is a lot of food insecurity in Seattle and in the United States in general," Giacomo Dalla Chiara, a UW senior research scientist with the UW Urban Freight Lab, said in a news release.

• "But we know that there is also a lot of food waste. ... And we want to see how grassroots efforts like micropantries can address both food insecurity and waste at the same time."

Between the lines: The UW team installed weight sensors on a few pantries to detect their stock levels and update the app automatically — part of a data-gathering experiment to see how the pantries are used.

• "It puts numbers on what we're actually accomplishing, and it helps us get a lot more in touch with what's going on on this street," said Stephen Crippen, rector at St. Paul's Episcopal Church near Seattle Center, which runs a Little Free Pantry with a new sensor installed.

What we're watching: The UW team is working with businesses and nonprofits "to encourage and track food distribution throughout the pantry network," per the university.