AggieHelp

Inspiration College students often need small, everyday help: carrying groceries after an injury, walking across campus at night, finding a classroom, borrowing an item, or getting quick tech help. But asking for help can feel awkward, unsafe, or isolating. We built AggieHelp because campus communities already have people willing to help. They just need a safer, clearer way to connect.

What it does AggieHelp is a UC Davis mutual-aid app where verified students can request and offer small, voluntary, non-monetary assists. Students can post requests, offer help, match with peers, coordinate through in-app chat, choose public SafeMeet locations, and use ConsentShare to decide whether contact info sharing is allowed. The app also includes moderation for unsafe messages, report flows, safe meetup suggestions, and an admin dashboard for safety review.

How we built it We built AggieHelp with Next.js for the frontend and Supabase for persistent data, authentication, realtime updates, and app storage. Supabase stores profiles, requests, offers, matches, messages, safe spots, moderation logs, and reports. We also built safety logic for blocked categories, contact-sharing moderation, public meetup suggestions, and role-based demo flows for requester, helper, and admin users.

Challenges we ran into The hardest part was balancing helpfulness with safety. We did not want AggieHelp to feel like a gig marketplace or task app with payments. We had to clearly define what kinds of assists are allowed, block risky requests, keep contact sharing consent-based, and make chat moderation understandable for both users. We also worked through Supabase setup, environment variables, seeded demo accounts, and making realtime flows feel smooth enough for a hackathon demo.

Accomplishments that we're proud of We are proud that AggieHelp is more than a simple request board. It includes verification, matching, ConsentShare, SafeMeet, chat moderation, reports, admin review, and seeded demo flows. We are also proud of the product direction: the app centers trust, consent, and community care instead of payments or gig work.

What we learned We learned how important safety design is when building social apps. Small details, like whether contact info is shared, where students meet, and how blocked messages appear, can completely change how safe the app feels. We also learned how to connect a Next.js app with Supabase, seed realistic demo data, and design flows around both user experience and moderation needs.

What's next for AggieHelp Next, we would add official campus email verification, stronger identity checks, better accessibility preferences, smarter matching, expanded SafeMeet locations, push notifications, and deeper admin tools. We would also want to partner with campus organizations, disability services, student housing, and basic needs programs to make AggieHelp useful beyond the hackathon demo.

Built With

• css
• google-maps-links
• html
• javascript
• next.js
• node.js
• postgresql
• react
• supabase
• supabase-auth
• supabase-realtime
• tailwind-css
• typescript
• vercel