By Yvanna Saint-Fort, News Correspondent

A new Twitter account will help notoriously cash-strapped students locate free food on campus.

Launched on Sept. 27, FreeFeedNU is the brainchild of Devon Grodkiewicz, a sophomore double majoring in environmental studies and business. The account serves as an alert system to let students know about free food events happening on and around campus.

Grodkiewicz originally came up with the idea for a free food alert last spring. A friend told him about an event on campus that involved free burritos, but Grodkiewicz missed it. That’s when the idea for FreeFeedNU hit him.

“I thought about making an alert system that would tell people on campus when and where there would be free food,” Grodkiewicz said.

Originally, the alert system was supposed to be an application for smart phones. Because he had no experience in making apps, Grodkiewicz asked around and discovered someone who was able to help him out.

Andrew Barba, a sophomore computer science major, signed on to the project and the two have worked together ever since. They realized that creating an app would be a long and difficult process, so the two devised the immediate, but temporary, solution of using Twitter.

After starting the account, Grodkiewicz and Barba have gotten word out about their project in multiple ways. They pass out flyers and offer prizes for people who retweet their messages. FreeFeedNU also offers a monthly giveaway in the form of a $20 gift card to places like Starbucks and UBurger. As of Wednesday night, the @FreeFeedNU account had 524 followers.

Grodkiewicz said upkeep of the account is a cumbersome task that involves lots of emailing back and forth and staying in touch with multiple clubs and organizations to find out about free events.

@FreeFeedNU also depends on people who tweet at them, alerting Grodkiewicz and Barba to events on campus that they missed.

Grodkiewicz and Barba said they hope to continue working together in the future and they are developing an app that will potentially involve businesses and vendors.

“Right now I’m working on a prototype for the app,” Barba said. “But when everything is said and done, the app will be able to be used on iPhones and Androids, in addition to a website.”

When the FreeFeed app is finished, it will incorporate features that will allow promoters to use the service by posting when and where they will be offering giveaways. For example, if Starbucks planned to offer free drinks on the corner of Huntington Avenue and Forsyth Street, company workers could log onto their account with FreeFeed and post their exact location and giveaway information.

Grodkiewicz and Barba also said they plan to enter the Husky Startup Challenge run by the university Entrepreneurs Club.

Looking for free food on the Northeastern campus? Check out @FreeFeedNU on Twitter.