Free Food Distribution Sites

Coronavirus both hampers the ability of local food banks to [provide food] and greatly expands the number of people who may soon need it. ... other non-affected food banks, faith groups, and nonprofits can step up to fill the need. - CityLab

How do we collate and distribute updated information of these new and existing resources so that people who may not be familiar with these programs could find out about the ones that are available to them?

• Simple and accessible? Visualize in a map

• Easily recruit help to add and update the resource? Allow for community participation and feedback

NOTE: This project is not Code for Pittsburgh's Food Access Map on GitHub.

• Tuesday, March 17, 2020: Assigned this project by DHS, Created a tool that incorporates community participation using ArcGIS Online, Worked with DHS for feedback
• Saturday, March 21, 2020: Officially published by Allegheny County with ~100 locations, Publicizing via social media and local news outlets (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, NextDoor, Slack, Esri, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, local newscasts, Esri articles and blogs, local civic tech community)
• Sunday, March 22, 2020:  Code for Pittsburgh Virtual Volunteering Meetup 

• Modified tool to include non-food sites (e.g. diapers), volunteer opportunities, and "delivery only" programs with no pick-up location, as well as highlight limited-time or one-day distribution events
• Developed partnerships with local food organizations to assist collecting and ingest their data (412 Food Rescue, Pittsburgh Public Schools and other schools in different municipalities in Allegheny County, City of Pittsburgh, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, etc.)
• With data from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, this tool expanded to include locations in the 11 surrounding counties in Western Pennsylvania.
• The application currently showcases 700+ locations, with about 250 manually updated on a daily basis, and about 400 semi-automatically updated. We have seen updates or new distribution locations submitted every day since launching this map to the public.

• UI/UX updates with community feedback
• Data collection and updates: automating as much data ingestion as possible, vetting crowd sourced information, adding new sites and correcting or removing old sites, de-duplication
• Developing more partnerships
• More advertising

• More access: Integrate data with the City of Pittsburgh's text messaging system; create a mobile-friendly interface for the map
• More partnerships: Include BigBurgh resources for the homeless and those at risk of being homeless
• Greater service area: Statewide implementation
• Greater visibility: Waze integration

How do we collate and distribute updated information of these new and existing resources so that people who may not be familiar with these programs could find out about the ones that are available to them?

The core project is creating an (official) updated, publicly accessible database. How you do it depends on your technical capabilities. Search for existing resource documents, people, or organizations that may have already put something together. Talk to your local Food Bank organization and ask how your expertise could best help get the word out. There are many solutions that your group could develop:

1. Code for _______ - updated document (e.g. Google Docs, Google Sheets)
2. Code for _______- updated map (e.g. Carto, MapBox, ArcGIS Online)
3. Crowd sourced + Code for _______- updated document
4. Crowd sourced + Code for _______- updated map

1. Project Champion(s) - this person(s) should be actively promoting the use of this solution at all times and encouraging more participation collating and updating the solution
2. Frontend UI/UX - this member(s) should be generally available, but not imperative after everything is set up
3. Data backend person(s) - this member(s) should be generally available, but not imperative after everything is set up
4. Data vetter(s), if required - this member(s) should be available all the time to ensure to submitters that their submissions are being actively looked at.
5. Manual data scraper(s)/updater(s) - these members can be recruited at any time and can be ever changing if the database and publicly-facing application is straightforward

Technology used: ArcGIS Online & ArcGIS Pro for bulk-data updating (Esri is offering  a complimentary six-month ArcGIS Online Subscription  due to the COVID-19 pandemic); Allegheny County Geocoder and Esri World Geocoder

• Dataset Setup: integrated to allow public submissions as well as more robust bulk editing via ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro; displayed based on 'population served,' 'volunteer opportunities,' and 'limited-time distributions' using filters within the web map (can also be achieved with View Layers)
• Main Map Features: custom pop-ups, short refresh interval for the datasets so users can see updates made within a minute of change, My Location widget with geo-enabled zoom, Search widgetwhich also searches feature services as well as addresses, Attribute Table widget which allows the public to download the data
• 'Submit Feedback' Tool: Editing widget which populates a separate feature service, tied to the submitter and not shown publicly
• Tabbed Interface: Classic Story Map (Tabbed Series)
• 'Submit a New Location' Tool: Survey123, whose results populate the same main feature service
• Displaying 'Delivery-Only' Programs: Operations Dashboard referencing the main dataset without displaying a map
• Displaying Multiple Links on One Website: Experience Builder to create "Get Help with SNAP" page
• Easy Vetting: In addition to using ArcGIS Pro, the core team can simply load a private ArcGIS Online editing application in any browser window created with ArcGIS Online Web AppBuilder

1. Design with change in mind (change in data schema, map functionality, map UI/UX, tools, mobile/other device responsiveness, etc.)
2. Have strong partnerships with local government and nonprofit organizations, and a way to highlight their partnerships.
3. Make sure that this resource is current.
4. Make it memorable. Make a nice and simple URL. Easy to share. ( https://www.tinyurl.com/pghfoodmap )