6,000 pounds of fresh produce every Saturday. Hundreds of volunteers. Coordinated by hand.
Food justice nonprofit · New York City · volunteer-run produce distribution
The client
A volunteer-run nonprofit moving fresh produce into underserved neighborhoods.
Every week, volunteer drivers collect produce across New York City and deliver it to drop-off locations in the communities that need it.
The challenge
Manual coordination stopped scaling.
Going from dozens to hundreds of weekly volunteers turned a workable Saturday routine into a full-time logistics job.
- Volunteer recruitment and scheduling consuming many staff hours weekly
- Data fragmented across spreadsheets, texts, and email
- Last-minute no-shows leaving routes incomplete
- Driver dispatch requiring individual text coordination
- No systematic way to manage drop-off locations or optimize routes
- No self-service tools for volunteers
Off-the-shelf volunteer platforms couldn’t handle their requirements: dynamic slots, SMS coordination, route optimization.
The solution
The nervous system for a volunteer network.
An operations platform with an Airtable database at the core — volunteer CRM, event management, drop-off locations, and time slots — with eight platforms unified into a single workflow.
The Airtable database
Volunteers, events, locations, and slots in one model, with automations for event creation, duplicate detection, phone validation, and slot status.
Two-way SMS
Twilio and Front turn dispatch into a conversation the system runs, instead of a person texting drivers one at a time.
Dynamic forms and sync
Jotform and On2Air handle self-service signup; HubSpot stays in step without anyone re-keying a record.
The results
What changed.
- 10,000+ volunteer records managed
- 700+ delivery events coordinated
- 6,000+ pounds of produce distributed weekly
- 8 platforms unified into a single workflow
What it freed up
Event setup dropped from hours to minutes and volunteer-by-volunteer dispatch disappeared — staff went back to community relationships instead of coordination logistics.
In their words
“Park West Digital is a godsend for small business seeking quality expertise in implementing tech solutions.
Mecca is professional, thorough, and extremely talented.
Above all, he takes on projects as if they were his own, and his level of care shines through in the final result.”
Executive Director
Volunteer-run food justice nonprofit · New York City
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