Solano County Food Resources

Inspiration

The Bay Area is notoriously an expensive place to live. With food prices increasing by 4.5% each year, an increasing number of low-income families are left with no choice but to depend on food banks. However, many of those food resources are hidden by scattered locations, language barriers, and endless Google searches which most working families don’t have the time or energy for. Our goal was to create something that prioritized convenience, a variety of options, and accessibility. That is how we came up with the website Solano County Food Resources. Living in the poorest county in the Bay Area, we wanted a simplistic way for our community to access resources. Food insecurity weighs a heavy toll on our county and we believe we can lift this burden by bridging people to help.

What it does

Our website provides a space for food-insecure residents in Solano County to conveniently access food banks and California resources. Our website reflects the diversity of our county by offering both an English and Spanish page as well as resources for minors and the elderly. The user can easily navigate the custom map on the left for food banks near them and browse the resources on the right for more options.

How we built it

Our team went searching across multiple different websites and map services to find the best food banks in Solano County and extending. We then used Google’s My Map’s feature to create custom English and Spanish maps color coordinated by type of establishment and including business hours. We then used our prior limited knowledge of HTML and CSS to create this website to the best of our ability. We relied heavily on Google as we were able to create an embed code for our My Maps through Google and used Google Translate to create the Spanish page.

Challenges we ran into

We encountered very minor challenges while coding the website as things would not display how we wanted them to or we did not type the syntax correctly. These were all fixed after plenty of guessing and checking until we started to understand HTML better.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are extremely satisfied with the look and design of our website. We feel we accomplished creating an easily navigable and simple site that aligns with our goal for accessibility.

What we learned

We were grateful to be able to better our skills in HTML and CSS. Throughout the process we learned more about what you can make with HTML, and more about what we are capable of as people.

What's next for Solano County Food Resources

With our main focus being accessibility, we want this website to be seen past a GitHub repository. Local food-focused organizations such as Sustainable Solano can provide a platform for us to share our website and reach those in our community who would benefit the most. In the future, we hope that this resource can extend to all of California and become a space for food banks to advertise their help. By collaborating with our community, this resource can help solve one of our county’s biggest problems and scale up to address the universal need for healthy foods.

Built With

• css
• github
• google-my-maps
• google-translate
• html
• replit