Xenia

Inspiration

I've always wanted to work on the health side of things, and to help on a global scale. World hunger is the problem I keep coming back to. I believe it can be solved, whether that means new ways to grow food in poor soil, better access to clean water, or something nobody has tried yet. This hackathon was a chance to start close to home, with hunger in Des Moines.

What it does

Xenia matches extra food from stores and restaurants to a nearby pantry that asked for it.

• Give food: a store types one sentence ("40 vegetarian meals, refrigerated, need gone by 7pm"). Xenia rules out pantries that can't store it or aren't open in time, says why, and ranks the rest by need, distance and room. One click sends it and produces a receipt.
• Find food: no sign-up and no ID. A map and list of real Des Moines pantries with hours, a call button and directions.
• What pantries need: pantries post what they're short on, and each donation counts toward the request it answers.
• Give time: every donation creates a driving job a volunteer can take. Stores, pantries and the city can post jobs too.

How I built it

I built it with Claude Code. It's a plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript site hosted on GitHub Pages, with a map from Leaflet and OpenStreetMap. The matching rules have automated tests.

Challenges

The hardest part was deciding what to build. Hunger is a huge topic, and there are very few free resources and little open data to work from. I'm also a student, so I had limited time, and I couldn't research or write up as much as I wanted to.

What I learned

It is much more complicated than I expected. I thought the answer would be simpler. Getting food to people is less about having enough food and more about timing, storage, transport and trust.

What's next

A shared database so postings are live for everyone, a pilot with one real pantry, and Spanish and text-message access.

Disclosure

This is a prototype. The pantry list is real public information. The stores and food postings are examples, and no partnership with any organization is claimed.

Built With

• claude