BOISE -- It isn't your typical college project. And that's the point.
Over the last several months, Boise State University computer science seniors have been plugging away, creating websites and applications for sponsors.
One group teamed up with Interfaith Sanctuary, which provides emergency services and shelter for our area's homeless, to help the shelter address a real need. Interfaith struggles with providing meals for their guests on weekends. So to combat that, these BSU students and the shelter made an Adopt-A-Meal website.
Interfaith Sanctuary and Life's Kitchen provide hot cooked meals to our community's homeless Monday through Friday. But dinner time on the weekends is a challenge because the shelter doesn't have a kitchen. If no one from the community volunteers to cook a meal for them, staff makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for their guests.
They wanted to make it easier for the community to sign up to adopt a meal and serve.
"It's so positive and people love to do it and we wanted to make it as easy as possible," Interfaith Sanctuary Co-Director Jodi Peterson said.
It's been tough coordinating and organizing people wanting to cook and adopt a meal for Interfaith Sanctuary. So when Boise State's computer science department reached out to Peterson about partnering up, she jumped on the opportunity.
"They get to know my shelter and what this is going to mean," Peterson told KTVB. "The idea just kept growing. And they would have different things for me to see every three weeks and I have this now and it's exactly what I needed."
"So we want the community to be a part of bringing that solution to our guests," Peterson added.
This solution would help 200 guests that may not get a nutritious meal, otherwise.
"We have a real problem here in Boise and how can you solve it?" senior and one of the Adopt-A-Meal site developers, Matt Smith, said. "Food is so essential that if we can help even a small way of just scheduling people to provide food that will have like rippling effects through the community."
Team MergeConflicts, as they dub themselves, tackled the challenge by creating the Adopt-A-Meal website centered around a calendar sign-up sheet.
"We worked on it continuously," Smith added.
You can even pitch in and peruse recipes. It's simple, easy to use and easy to maintain, as Adopt-A-Meal's code lives on.
"The code is now meaningful. It's not just hammering out one's and zero's. It has a purpose," the students' lecturer, Shane Panter, said.
Those involved say this project and partnership is a win all around:
"It is a win-win-win. It's a win for Jodi and Interfaith Sanctuary; it's a win for Boise State University computer science department because we get to work with an outstanding sponsor; and it's a win for the community. We get to provide this service to an organization that may not be able to afford it otherwise. Oh, it's one more win: it's a win for our students," Panter said.
The students will be able to tout this website on their resume.
"We can learn a whole bunch from a textbook over the course of four years but until you take what you've learned and apply it and actually talk to someone and say, like, 'I have these skills, how can I solve a problem or do you have a problem I can solve?' you're not applying and learning," Smith said.
"It really is going to address a need. It's going to create a bigger community for us and it's going to provide better nutrition for our adults and our children. They should have meals," Peterson told KTVB.
The Adopt-a-Meal website is now officially up and running. You can head to this link to donate!
The code is also open source: it will be available in the near future for any other organization that wants to utilize this type of system and website.
