Important Information About Using
"Alfie," the AI for Food Voicebot
Last updated: May 29, 2026
Alfie is a free voicebot from AI for Kindness, Inc., in partnership with Feeding San Diego, designed to help people find food pantries by phone. We built Alfie with care, and most of the time Alfie gets it right. But Alfie is an AI, not a person, and there are some important things every caller and every community partner should know.
If you are in a medical or safety emergency, hang up and dial 911. If you are in crisis, in the United States you can also dial or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. For general social-services referrals beyond food, dial 211.
Alfie Provides Information — Not Guarantees
Alfie can tell you that a pantry exists, what its listed hours are, where it's located, and what details we have on file. Alfie cannot guarantee any of the following:
- That a pantry will actually be open at the time Alfie says it is open.
- That the pantry will have food in stock when you arrive.
- That you will personally qualify to receive food at any pantry.
- That a pantry serves your dietary, religious, allergy, or cultural needs.
- That a pantry will speak your language on the day you visit.
Pantry hours change. Pantries occasionally close for weather, holidays, illness, or volunteer shortages. New pantries open and others close. Distribution rules can change week to week. Alfie does its best with the information available, but the information Alfie has is only as current as the data we receive.
What Alfie Is Not
Please remember that Alfie is not:
- NOT a medical or nutritional advisor.
- NOT a legal, benefits, or immigration advisor.
- NOT a crisis or emergency service. See the red notice above.
- NOT a pantry itself.
- NOT a human being. Alfie is an artificial intelligence. It can misunderstand speech, make mistakes, or be unavailable during outages.
Calls and Texts
Calls to Alfie at (619) 848-1242 you will be recorded and transcribed so the Service can function and so we can improve it. If you do not want to be recorded, please hang up. Standard message and data rates from your carrier may apply; AI for Kindness does not charge for calls or messages. If you ask Alfie to text you, you can stop further messages anytime by replying STOP.
For more detail, see our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use.
Please Don't Share Sensitive Personal Information
Alfie does not need your full name, address, Social Security number, immigration status, financial information, or medical history to help you find a pantry — and we don't want to collect any of that. Please don't share information you wouldn't want collected.
For Community Partners
If you are a library, community center, faith community, school, clinic, or other partner sharing Alfie with people you serve, please:
- Tell people that Alfie is an AI, not a human operator;
- Encourage people to confirm pantry hours with the pantry directly before traveling.
- Use the free flyers on the Alfie page rather than re-typing details that may change over time.
If you spot an error in what Alfie is saying about a pantry — including your own — please let us know at info@aiforkindness.org so we can fix it.
Reporting a Problem
If Alfie gave you incorrect information, was unable to help you, or you had a concerning experience, we would genuinely like to hear about it. Please email info@aiforkindness.org with as much detail as you can comfortably share (the date and approximate time of the call, the zip code you were asking about, and what went wrong). Reports from real callers are one of the best ways we improve.