AmeriCorps:
Designing Databases and Info Vizzes for Food Banks
Roles: Data Ontologist, UI Writer, Kitchen Staff
Duration: 10 weeks
My Projects
AmeriCorps Kitchen Staff
I volunteered full-time as “HungerCorp” kitchen staff at Mary’s Place, a family shelter in downtown Seattle.
Cooked hot meals for over 400 guests daily at 7 Mary’s Place locations.
Served meals to over 150 guests daily at the shelter.
Online Recipe Book
Problem: All meals were cooked from memory, which hindered productivity of new kitchen staff
Solution: Create an online recipe book for Mary’s Place Family Shelter.
My Work:
Conducted in-depth interviews with senior chefs and recorded 20 common recipes they used
Designed recipe cards using Google Sheets that had a similar and familiar design as print recipes and automatically reflected the chef’s intended batch size.
Constructed a Google Drive recipe book for the recipes, delineated by cuisine, and easy to share.
Presented the recipe book to my manager so they could use and add to the recipe book, and revised it based on their needs.
Food Inventory System
Problem: Donated food intake and output was recorded by hand on outdated papers every day.
Solution: Create an online and mobile food inventory survey and spreadsheet so food inventory can be easily documented, shared, and stored.
My Work:
Interviewed the head chef to understand the current food inventory and donation system to identify critical uses, pain points, and growth areas.
Designed a food inventory survey using Google Forms that captured the user’s name and the weight and kind of food they brought in from the donation trucks.
Tailored the survey to needs of Mary’s Place kitchen staff through iterative design to promote a fast and easy user experience.
Presented the new food inventory system to the head chef and taught them how to access the results, analyze the data, and share it with others.
Cafeteria Posters
I created infographics about refrigerators, food safety, and serving food to guests.
The posters are simple, bold, and readable, and I taught others how to make posters too.
Now, senior staff can visually communicate important procedures to new volunteers, kitchen assistants, and floor staff.
The Little Free Pantries 2020
I volunteered as a writer and visual designer for Little Free Pantries (LFP) in the summer.
LPF is a non-profit organization that Little Free Pantries supports neighbors in hosting and stocking their own small food pantries. This way, neighbors can support neighbors who are facing food insecurity and build micro-communities in their neighborhood.
The Little Free Pantries needed brochures about the pantries in 10 Seattle neighborhoods. I created a map for each neighborhood with a dot for every pantry location, and worked with other volunteers to write information about the pantry in English, Spanish, and Chinese (Mandarin) to increase accessibility for residents of those neighborhoods. I then printed a thousand brochures to hand out at local community centers.
