Lea Katharina Michel

Technology plays a pivotal role in driving transformation through grassroots movements, which operate on a local scale while embracing a global perspective on sustainability. Consequently, research emerged within Sustainable HCI, aiming to derive design principles that can empower these movements to scale their impact. However, a notable gap exists in contributions when addressing scalability of large free and open-source software (FOSS) projects. This paper aims to present our endeavors as action-oriented researchers with the voluntary-driven Foodsharing.de movement, focusing on a local community, the open-source developers and their connections. Within a community of 585,000 users and only a few developers that is dedicated to save and share surplus food, we explore the concepts of ‘intermediary experience’. We also introduce the notion of ‘serendipitous connections’, highlighting the unintentional yet beneficial associations that can arise from the collaboration between developers and users.