Cooper Pantry (SUBMISSION)

What I Built

Cooper Pantry is an inventory management and community outreach application aimed at food pantries. An assistant powered by Twilio Autopilot and Programmable Chat encourages potential food bank recipients to describe their food security via the USDA's Food Security Survey, and the platform enables potential recipients to discover food banks in their area and browse their inventories.

Not only does Cooper Pantry enable prospective recipients to discover their local pantries, but it also allows pantries to view reports about the food security in their community and reach out to those who are most at risk via SMS using Twilio's Programmable SMS service. Pantries can further educate their communities about their offerings by managing their online inventory. Cooper Pantry uses USDA's Food Central API to search and manage food bank inventories and display nutritional facts to food bank recipients.

How I Built It

Tech Stack

Cooper Pantry uses the following stack:

• Communication: Twilio Autopilot, Programmable Chat, and Programmable SMS
• Authentication: Firebase Authentication
• USDA Food Central Data API (https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/api-guide.html)
• Data persistence: Postgres
• Server: NestJS
• Frontend: Angular 9

Demo

Live Demo

https://cooper-pantry.herokuapp.com

Note: As of now, Cooper Pantry is using a trial Twilio account, so SMS messages will not be sent to unverified numbers.

Pantry Staff Workflow

Managing Inventory

Pantry staff can search the USDA's food database to find inventory to add to their pantry.

SMS Outreach

Pantry staff can search potential pantry recipients by their food security and message them via SMS.

Pantry Recipient Workflow

Food Security Assistant

Pantry recipients can interact with a bot in order to fill out the USDA's Food Security Survey Module (https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/survey-tools/#CPS). By filling out this survey, food pantries can identify and contact people who have low food security.

Pantry Inventory Page

Potential food bank recipients can browse local pantries' inventories and view nutritional facts on the USDA's website.

Link to Code

https://github.com/geriley/cooper-pantry

Future Development

Most of the MVP functionality for Cooper Pantry is established. Pantries can manage and advertise their inventory, identify food security needs within their communities, and can reach out to those who are most at risk.

In order to further enhance a pantry's ability to organize their volunteers and serve vulnerable populations, online ordering, pickup scheduling, and delivery management may be implemented. Moreover, Cooper Pantry can expand to allow pantries to reach out to their communities to find volunteers and ask for donations.