Software for a food bank that you describe in plain words

Where it starts

Run until now from paper forms, a group chat and a quarterly scramble for the funders. The business in this demonstration: Four staff and about 120 volunteers, serving around 400 households a week.

This is a product demonstration with a made-up business, not a customer story.

What the app takes care of

• Donations from supermarkets and food drives were logged on paper. Each donation is logged with its items, weights and use-by dates, and stock goes up and down as parcels go out.
• Families registered on paper forms. A household register holds the members and dietary needs, shown by number so a screen at the counter never shows a family's name.
• Volunteer shifts were organised in a group chat, so some were short-handed and others overbooked. The shift board shows every gap and every overbooked shift, and volunteers sign up on their phone.
• The quarterly report to funders took days to put together. Pick a quarter and the report shows households and people helped, parcels and food given out and received.
• It was hard to say who had collected a parcel this week and who had not. Ask how many families were helped, and the answer comes from the weekly parcel records.

The screens the crew designed

• The distribution week, at a glance, for Staff: Parcels still to hand out, the food to use first and the shifts that need people, with each day of the week across the top.
• Every parcel, from packing to hand-out, for Staff: Each household's parcel moves from to pack, to packed, to collected, with the food packed from stock and the oldest batches first.
• A volunteer's shifts, for Volunteers: The next shift, the places still open and one tap to sign up. Volunteers see shifts and their own details, never the families.
• Every gap in the week, in one view, for Staff: Each shift shows a dot for every person and a red ring for every place still open, so short-handed and overbooked shifts stand out.
• The funder report, already worked out, for Manager: Households, people, parcels and food for the quarter, how each number is counted, and what to fix before sending.

Routines it runs

In this session the crew planned shift reminders by email to send only from the live app, never from a draft, and household details to be restricted by role.

• Stock follows the parcels. When a parcel is packed or handed back: The weight goes down or back up on the batch it came from, so the shelf count stays true.
• Use first. When a batch is close to its use-by date: It rises to the top of the packing list and is counted in the week's food to use first.
• Shift gaps. When a shift has fewer people signed up than it needs: It is marked short on the shift board and on the staff home page.

What changes for the owner

• The group chat is retired. Volunteers sign up on their phone, and staff see every short-handed and overbooked shift at once.
• Funder numbers without the scramble. The quarterly figures come from the records the food bank already keeps, each with a plain definition.
• Families' details stay private. Households are listed by number, and details are shown only to the people whose role needs them.

Who works on it

Leo, the lead, brought in the experts this job needed: Leo, Sentry, Archie, Dax, Dez, Ana, Cody.

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