NeighborBoostATL

Inspiration

Atlanta’s small businesses are the heartbeat of our neighborhoods — but when a café has a quiet afternoon, a bakery has leftover boxes before closing, or a shop needs one skilled helper, that ask often disappears into crowded social feeds. We wanted a simple, local way for neighbors to answer with one clear action.

NeighborBoost ATL is built on one idea: Atlanta shows up for Atlanta.

What it does

NeighborBoost ATL helps Atlanta mom-and-pop businesses post one immediate, time-sensitive need. Community members can:

Browse a Discover feed of local requests
Filter by neighborhood, business category, and support type
Commit to I’ll Visit, I’ll Share, or I Can Help
See progress bars, impact metrics, and a Hot Right Now ranking update live
Post their own request with a story, goal, expiration time, and optional media

All of this runs in a lightweight Streamlit session — no accounts, no payments, no friction.

How we built it

We built a focused hackathon MVP with:

Python + Streamlit for a fast, mobile-friendly web app
Session state to store posts, supporter counts, and commitments
Custom CSS for a warm Atlanta-inspired look (peach, cream, navy, community green)
Features like dark/light mode, hottest-first ranking, filters, Reset Demo, and Render deploy config

We combined the best of two teammate prototypes: strong design/structure plus engagement features that make supporting a business feel immediate.

Challenges we ran into

Shipping polish under a tight deadline without overbuilding
Making Streamlit feel like a community product, not a dashboard
Keeping dark mode readable while protecting brand contrast
Designing demo data that feels real but stays clearly fictional and labeled

Accomplishments that we're proud of

A complete end-to-end loop: post → discover → commit → impact
A feed that surfaces the hottest local needs first
Warm, community-centered UI with light and dark themes
A demo-ready prototype that judges can understand in under a minute

What we learned

“Hack for Good” works best when the ask is small, local, and timed
Progress and social proof make helping feel tangible
Constraints (no database, auth, or payments) helped us focus on the core neighbor action