QueenCityHearts

Queen City Hearts is our real attempt to track and honor YMCA volunteers in Cincinnati. Every logged hour is visible, counted, and celebrated as part of the city’s heartbeat.

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Inspiration

When I mentored students in the Sí Se Puede program, we struggled to track hours and attendance. Sign-in sheets disappeared, spreadsheets broke, and students who gave so much never saw their work recognized. That experience inspired me to build internal tools where effort never gets lost and where volunteers can see the impact they make.

What it does

Queen City Heart is a platform that turns raw volunteer data into recognition and belonging. Volunteers log hours that become badges, milestones, and stories. Staff see dashboards that simplify reporting across branches. We added an AI agent that instantly answers questions like “How many hours do I have until my next badge?” or “Show me this quarter’s totals.”

How we built it

Backend: A rules engine ingests CSV exports from VolunteerMatters, cleans the data, and applies badge logic.

Frontend: A “Belonging Passport” web app where volunteers see badges, stories, and progress, and staff see branch totals and demographics.

Branding: We created the Queen City Heart identity, tying Cincinnati’s Queen City nickname to the heart as a symbol of community.

AI Chatbot: Built on open-source frameworks (Langraph, Flowise) to make data accessible in real time.

Challenges we ran into

Messy CSV exports that needed normalization.

Balancing technical features with a human, celebratory experience.

Building within a one-day hackathon meant focusing on the essentials.

Defining badge logic that felt transparent and fair to both staff and volunteers.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Delivering a working pipeline that connects raw data to a polished volunteer passport.

Designing a system that feels fun for volunteers but practical for staff.

Building branding that ties deeply to Cincinnati’s Queen City identity.

Integrating an AI chatbot that makes the data useful and approachable.

What we learned

Recognition is as important as tracking.

Simple, transparent rules build trust.

AI can remove friction if it is placed where staff and volunteers naturally ask questions.

The best tech is invisible because it supports human connection rather than replacing it.

What's next for Queen City Heart

We want to integrate directly with VolunteerMatters APIs to eliminate CSV imports, expand the badge system into a full deck of collectible cards, and pilot the AI agent with real staff and volunteers. Longer term, this platform could serve as a model for other YMCA branches and nonprofits across the country.

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