LocalHelps

Landing Page, search for a local organization to donate to
Results, find out who to donate to
Suggest, suggest a local organization not in our database
About, learn more about what LocalHelps does

Inspiration

We were inspired to build LocalHelps as our hack this year after some of our team members ran into trouble finding local charities or non-profit organizations that would accept our donations. We found that there is no updated website that matches charities based off of what you have to donate. Thus we decided to make LocalHelps, to make local donating easy.

What it does

LocalHelps provides users with a simple, one-stop-shop to find local non-profit organizations or charities that accept their specific donations. On our web application, users provide their general location, and specify what category of item they want to donate. Then our system searches through our database and displays a local organization that accepts their specific blend of donations.

The initial database is quite small, so to add scalability we use crowdsourcing to make LocalHelps better. Users can suggest new local organizations to be added into the database to help others. To moderate the suggestions, a voting system will be used where accurate suggestions will be kept, while inaccurate ones will be deleted.

How we built it

We used JavaScript and a bit of Python for the back-end, and HTML and CSS for the UI/front-end. We created a csv file, which we then parsed through and created JSON objects of. From there, we were able to create our database of charities. We also integrated a Google Maps API for the map feature so that users can visualize where their local charities and non-profit organizations are.

Challenges we ran into

This hackathon was our first one (for all of our team members!). This was also the first time that our team's developers used JavaScript and HTML/CSS, so there was a lot of troubleshooting to do at first. Further, using the Google Maps API was our first time integrating an API, and it was definitely tricky to navigate at first.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Although LocalHelps isn't perfect, we're all very proud of what we were able to create in 24 hours! Like we mentioned earlier, this was our first hackathon, so we learned a lot and can't wait to participate in more hackathons down the road.

What we learned

Teamwork makes the dream work! Although there was a lot to do, we all split up and tried taking on tasks that were best catered to our own strengths.

What's next for LocalHelps

LocalHelps currently only operates in Metro-Vancouver, but we look forward to expanding LocalHelps so that givers all around the world can be paired with local non-profit organizations and charities.

Built With

Submitted to

nwHacks 2021

Created by

I mostly worked on the back-end! It was tough since it was my first time using node.js, and JavaScript, but I learned a lot. I also worked a bit on the front end with CSS and HTML.

Vanessa Chow
I worked on the UI/UX design as well as helping out as a project manager. I also took care of the presentation for the team!

Brandon Situ
I worked on the back-end implementation, working with JavaScript for the first time. Additionally, I handled the front-end implementation of the HTML and CSS files as well.

Carina Tze
I mostly worked on the back-end and integrated the Google Maps Platform API to provide a visual representation of the local organizations in Metro-Vancouver!

megan wong