From My Kitchen to Yours: I Built a Food Swap Board for My Neighborhood

This is a submission for the DEV Weekend Challenge: Community

💁🏽‍♀️ The Community

In my part of the world (Southeast Asia), we have a beautiful culture of "အိမ်နီးနားချင်း", "Gotong Royong" or "Bayanihan." It’s that unwritten rule that if your mango tree is overflowing, you don’t let the fruit rot, you pass it over the fence to your neighbor.

This culture is still alive in some parts of rural areas. However, in our modern, fast-paced neighborhoods, we’ve lost that "over the fence" connection. I built this app to bring that village-style sharing into the digital age.

🥔 What I Built

NextDoor is a lightweight, real-time bulletin board for food sharing. It’s a "zero-waste" tool that lets neighbors post surplus garden harvests, pantry extras, or home-cooked meals.

The Goal is to make sure no wasted food happens in my home or in our neighborhood. And there is also direct-to-WhatsApp integration that skips the "official" sign-up friction and gets neighbors talking instantly.

🚀 Core Features

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  Real-Time "Claim" System: Neighbors can instantly reserve items. The UI updates with a blue strike-through (Sourdough) to show an item is pending pickup, preventing double-claims.


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  One-Tap WhatsApp Integration: Skips the friction of "Add to Cart." A custom-styled button opens a pre-filled WhatsApp chat with the donor to coordinate pickup instantly.


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  Localized Categorization: Built-in filters for common neighborhood extras: Fruits, Veggies, Cooked Meals, and Herbs.
  


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  Persistent "Flat-File" Database: Uses a lightweight CSV backend, ensuring the community board stays updated without the overhead of a heavy SQL database.


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  Mobile-First Design: Custom CSS injection ensures the app feels like a native mobile tool—perfect for use in the kitchen or the garden.


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  Session-Safe Undos: Accidental clicks happen! The app uses Streamlit’s session_state to allow users to "Undo" a claim instantly during their visit.

🎲 Demo

The interface is responsive, making it easy for an Uncle at the wet market or a Tita in her kitchen to post an item in seconds.

Link to streamlit:

💻 Code

🧱 How I Built

I wanted this to be fast, free to host, and easy to use.

Streamlit (Python): Handled the entire frontend and the logic for searching/filtering categories.

Pandas: Used for the "Database"—a simple CSV file that keeps the app lightweight and easy for anyone to manage.

WhatsApp Public API: I used custom HTML/CSS buttons to trigger wa.me links, pre-filling messages like "Hi, is the extra Papaya still available?" to make the user experience seamless.

Session State: To keep the UI snappy, I used Streamlit’s memory to handle "Claims" so neighbors can see what's being picked up in real-time without refreshing the whole database.