Here For Free

Here For Free: Give freely & collect with dignity. Share things with people nearby. Drop a pin on the map, add a description, and offer your item. No accounts or adverts. Simple & quick for everyone.

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Inspiration

During the cost of living crisis, many people we know have been quietly leaving food or spare things on doorsteps or community shelves. Many of the websites for giving things away either require you to create a social account, sign up with personal details, or deal with adverts and intrusive prompts. It can feel awkward or embarrassing to ask for help, especially if you have to say publicly that you would like to collect something and everyone nearby can see. We wanted to create something simple and open; a map where you can share what you have without feeling you have to prove anything or be exposed. The idea was to build a small tool that helps people support each other in a way that feels human, private and dignified.

What it does

Here For Free is an anonymous way to give away useful things to neighbours. You can drop a pin on a map, write a short description and address and share your items without any accounts or sign-ups. Other people nearby can see what is available, mark when they are on the way and confirm when something has been collected. Everything is built around trust and the idea that giving should feel easy, private and respectful.

How we built it

We planned the interface to be simple and suitable for all ages. We spoke with other mums to understand what would feel comfortable and straightforward to use. We worked together to design the app and used Bolt as a framework to generate much of the code. We also discussed our ideas with Claude to help shape the best way to prompt Bolt and guide the development process. David is technically minded and has a background in design, while I work with charities and hold a degree in Psychology. We combined our skills to make the app feel welcoming, easy to understand and practical for anyone who wants to give or collect items without hassle.

Challenges we ran into

We had to learn how to deploy the app properly, as deploying projects in the past with Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor had often been difficult. We liked working with React and were pleased to discover Netlify as a way to get things online more easily. Before starting, we tested Bolt with a simple calculator project and asked lots of questions about databases, as we knew we would need to build an extensive system to handle posts without user accounts. Creating a structure that could store multiple items anonymously but still allow people to manage their own listings proved challenging. Choosing the right tools and planning the best way to prompt Bolt so it would understand our aims took time, but it helped us feel confident in the final approach.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that we managed to build an app that feels welcoming, simple, and free from the usual barriers people face when trying to give or collect useful things. Creating a way to share items without accounts, adverts, or complicated sign-ups felt important to us, and we are pleased that the result is something anyone can understand and use easily. We also feel proud that we kept the focus on privacy and dignity, especially for people who might feel uncomfortable publicly asking for help.

What we learned

We learned that even the simplest ideas can be technically challenging when you want to protect privacy and avoid collecting unnecessary data. Finding a way to identify users without accounts or cookies took a lot of thought and testing. We also learned more about deploying web apps with Netlify, how to guide AI tools like Bolt effectively, and how to design a system that works well on both computers and phones. It was also a good reminder that speaking to real people about what they find easy or confusing can shape better decisions than any manual or guide.

What's next for Here For Free

Next, we plan to keep improving how people manage their listings, especially around deleting or updating posts in a simple way. We would like to refine how row-level security works in Supabase to make the process more user-friendly. It would be nice to work with Leaflets (the map) system to create a search by layer method to search for items locally. The whole idea could grow exponentially and we are really happy with the outcome. Also proud and thankful to Bolt, Netlify and Supabase for making it work to the point it's even online at Here For Free www.hereforfree.org

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