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App1
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High Level Architecture
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Inspiration
Across our local communities, thousands of families experience food insecurity every day. Yet when they seek help, they face an exhausting reality of traveling across town from one pantry to another, only to find empty shelves because current inventory information is locked away in disconnected spreadsheets or paper logs. At the same time, food pantries struggle on the operational front. Dedicated volunteers grapple with slow, manual intake lines, uncoordinated donation drop-offs, and no cross-pantry visibility to ensure fair household allowance distribution. We asked ourselves: What if we could build a unified, real-time single source of truth for the entire community? We envisioned a platform where families can find confirmed in-stock groceries with dignity, volunteers can process donations in seconds with barcode scanning, donors can plug into active community drives, and pantry coordinators have transparent oversight across every location. That vision became Good2Give
What it does
How we built it
Good2Give is engineered as a unified multi-tier ecosystem connecting four focused client frontends to a shared AWS serverless backbone. The 4 Specialized Frontends HandUP (Public Item & Pantry Search): A mobile-first progressive web app where clients search for staples (e.g., chicken, eggs, milk). An intelligent matching algorithm scores local pantries by fulfillment (e.g., 4 of 4 items available) and integrates FridgeCheck DSM for community fridge photo check-ins.
GivingHands Connect (Volunteer & Community Hub): A self-registration portal with dedicated pathways for Volunteers, Donors, Organizers, and Agencies, seamlessly funneling approved volunteers into operational shifts.
PantryOps (Administration & Governance): A staff portal featuring role-based dashboards, household PIN resets with document verification, monthly allowance adjustments with required audit reason logs, and compliance audit log inspection.
PantryTracker+ (Rugged Tablet POS & Barcode Scanner): A high-throughput terminal featuring HTML5 camera barcode scanning for instant UPC recognition, purchase order reconciliation, and stock decrements.
Challenges we ran into
Accomplishments that we're proud of
What we learned
Preventing Race Conditions at Checkout: During peak hours, multiple volunteers might scan items simultaneously. We solved inventory race conditions by applying DynamoDB ConditionExpression checks on balance versions and stock levels, guaranteeing that stock cannot drop below zero and allowance limits cannot be exceeded.
Zero Plaintext Secret Exposure: Pantries need to help families who forget their 7-character PIN cards without exposing sensitive credentials. We built a SuperAdmin/Admin lookup mechanism that uses HMAC-SHA256 one-way hashing with an isolated Secrets Manager pepper key. Staff can verify identity documents and issue a replacement PIN without anyone ever viewing plaintext PINs.
Designing for Rugged Hardware Constraints: Pantry warehouse terminals often run on budget hardware with spotty Wi-Fi. We implemented responsive camera barcode scanning optimized for mobile WebRTC video streams and integrated client-side optimistic UI updates backed by backend idempotency validation.
What's next for Good2Give
Predictive AI Demand Forecasting: Leveraging historical checkouts and seasonal trends to help food banks pre-allocate wholesale donations before pantries face stock-outs.
SMS & Offline Notification Integration: Allowing families to receive instant text alerts when critical dietary items (e.g., gluten-free, baby formula) are checked in at their neighborhood pantry.
Multi-City Federation: Packaging the AWS CDK deployment into a single-click template so non-profit networks nationwide can deploy their own connected pantry networks in minutes.
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