This simple web-app was inspired by "Hijacking Amazon Prime for Good". If you haven't seen this vid, please check it out now, by clicking on the picture.
- Do we need to wait for Christmas to set up a system like this?
- Do we need to use Amazon, or can we do it on our own?
If you want to see how the app could work, please check out the codepen below.
A trial codepen is here. It's not good enough to show to a wide audience. I need to fix;
- The design.
- How it looks on mobile.
- Two people (an Asker and a Delivery Person)
- A Reddit app on a smartphone (we are using Reddit for the prototype as it saves us 30-40 hours of coding time)
- Patience and goodwill.
Like in the video, the asker can approach homeless people, and respectfully ask them if they need anything. It's probably not a good idea to offer money... but socks, shoes, food, water, blankets are all good. A small menu may help.
Right now, the experiments would need to be self funded. But later, when there are more users, we hope the public will donate to the cause on Patreon or Paypal.
In the video, just ask them if they have anything they need long term. Maybe they need a place to stay, or they have skills for a job.
Use the following format for the title of the video {NAME} {LOCATION} {WHAT THEY NEED}
Example: Steve @Waterloo Station. Needs 5 pairs of socks, 5 bananas and a loaf of bread.
Once the video is uploaded, it will appear on the web app within 2-3 minutes.
When the delivery person sees the name, location and request of the homeless person, they can go and buy the goods needed, and deliver them. It would be helpful if the video gave some exact clues as to the location of the homeless person.
After the goods are delivered, we want to prove that they arrived. We also want to show that there is some good in the world. And offer a scalable solution for other communities. There's no reason that there couldn't be dozens of branches of this app in a few years.
Why use a web-app? Why can't the asker and delivery person communicate by phone, email, or message app?
People need to see something good going on in the world. The news is always telling us how bad we are. Delivering the goods on a public app shows viewers that there are people focused on fixing the world.
Later, we hope that experiments like this are funded on StartSomeGood or Patreon.
Yes, the source code is free for you tomodify as you like.
At first, it would have to be a volunteer using 5 pounds of their own money... but if the concept worked... I would hope people could donate on Patreon or StartSomeGood.
How about the asker finding local businesses who were willing to donate stuff and linking up with the deliverer ?
That's a good idea. We could start with a menu.
The code for this web-app is public domain.
MIT License
Copyright (c) [year] [fullname]
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.