Food for Thought: The Story Behind Atlanta Food Resources 2025

On a cloudy October Tuesday, after weeks of conference travel and networking I was exhausted. I had met and shook hands with perhaps hundreds of people by that point, and still had at least another 4 events ahead of me, with not much down time in between. However, it wasn’t the thought of another conference, or another happy hour that made me so tired. It was the morning news. In an era where political circus is the order of the day, and the real life impact on the average person seems to be a footnote, millions of people were about to face the reality of their monthly benefits not arriving within the next few days. If they had not already, they would have to begin weighing whether to pay their bills, or buy groceries. There was an imminent possibility of children going hungry because their parents or caretakers couldn’t afford to feed them. I was weary of my family, neighbors, and friends, and the sacrifices they would need to make to endure until the funding was released. 

Then, I saw something that made me look beyond my weariness. On LinkedIn, a software developer friend shared a graphic featuring local food resources and locations for assistance. I wanted to share immediately, but I realized that the graphic was dated back to 2020. Again, given our current times, I was sure that those resources no longer existed, or had at least changed relevant information. In the comments of the same post, another  software developer acquaintance had made my same observation. He also issued a challenge: create an easily shared app featuring an updated list of resources, built with vibe coding. 

In the words of Michael Jordan, "... I took that personally." Within the previous few weeks of conferencing,  hackathons and workshops were baked into my schedule as well. While many of my industry peers had begun to see AI as a threat to their careers in software engineering, I had begun reframing my thinking to see AI as part of my developer toolbox. Through workshops with companies like This Dot Labs, the hackathon at Magnolia Conference, and presentations at All Things Open, I came to understand that AI alone could NOT replace the decade of experience that I had building great software. The truth became clearer: As I invested in learning about AI as a developer tool, and combined that with my existing software knowledge, I could build better, easier to maintain, and more impactful applications. Now, I had an opportunity to put this optimistic thinking to use by building a tool to solve a real-world issue.

I went to my Notes app, and began brainstorming. First I needed resources, so I began gathering information on local charities and churches that would be assisting families in the crisis from local news. From there, I expanded my search to county by county, attempting to cover as much of metro Atlanta as possible. After gathering about 10 resources for the first draft of the application, I began to exercise my new “prompting like a software architect” muscles with Claude code. Given that the deadline for renewing the funding for benefits was approaching, I knew I had approximately 72 hours to get the app published and accessible to those who would need it the most. My initial prompt included scaffolding with Vite and React 19 components. For the sake of speed and simplicity, I used SCSS to style the components. After some “whirring” and “whizzing” I had a single page react app with l food resources listed and sortable by county, zip code, and address. 

While I was impressed at the speed with which my first draft came together, I very quickly realized that enhancements were going to be necessary. As that list of potential enhancements grew, a radical idea popped into my mind: make the app open source so other developers could contribute. As I published the app officially with a Linkedin post on the evening of 10/31, I emphasized that while the app was not as optimized as it could be, the project was actively seeking contributors with some enhancement ideas outlined in the project’s readme on Github. 

The overall public response thus far has been one of compassion and enthusiasm to help. Already, 3 developers aside from myself have contributed to the project with plans for more to become involved.  Since launch, we’ve heralded some major development milestones including

• The addition of  over 100 new ministries, food pantries, and emergency shelter services 

• Real time maps for locating food resources

• The ability for visitors to submit new resources to the directory

The latest version of the app has just been migrated to Vercel in anticipation for the next phase of development: a formal migration of the backend to a PostgreSQL database from a static JSON. This update allows for the app’s coverage to expand beyond metro Atlanta, with the eventual goals to cover more of the state of Georgia, and more cities around the country.

This project started with one tired developer, a LinkedIn post, and a sense that someone should do something. It has grown into a community effort; developers, organizers, and neighbors all contributing toward the same goal: making sure families know where help exists. If you’re a developer, there’s still time and room to contribute. If you’re connected to a food pantry, church, or mutual aid group, there’s room to expand the directory. And if you’re a family in need this season, I hope this app helps you find support without friction or shame. We may not be able to prevent the next crisis, but we can choose how we show up for each other when it arrives.

Project Github: https://github.com/AllisonMH/food-search-2025/tree/main

Official App Page: https://food-search-2025.vercel.app/