Club Apaseo El Alto

On a pantry day at Club Apaseo El Alto, volunteers used to sign families in by hand. After the doors closed, someone typed those sheets into spreadsheets. Weeks later, someone else built the state and member reports from those spreadsheets. Every hand-off was a chance for a count to come out wrong, and every count fed a report the club depended on.

The club serves Waukegan families through twice-weekly food and bread pantries, community classes, medical and mobility equipment loans, and programs celebrating Mexican arts, music and traditions. Most of the families speak Spanish. The project ran eight months, with an investment of $13,000, and it began under our previous name, Illuminate IT & Marketing.

Phase 1: Map the paper process

We didn't write a line of code until we understood how a family's information actually moved through the club: from the sign-in sheet, to the spreadsheet, to the member record, to the state report. That map told us what the app had to capture at the door so nothing had to be retyped later.

Phase 2: Build the member app, Spanish first

Accounts, sign-in and password reset default to Spanish, with English one tap away. Families create their own accounts and can register from their phones before they arrive, in their own language.

Phase 3: Model pantry days as events

Pantry days and programs are set up once as recurring event series. Each event type has its own form questions, so a pantry day asks only what a pantry day needs, and registrations record each household, including the children. An event history logs every status change.

Phase 4: Automate the reports

Member and pantry reports are generated in the background from the registration data. Nothing is rebuilt from paper.

Phase 5: Rebuild the public site

The club's old single-page Blogspot site gave way to a new website with programs, a gallery, a Register button into the app and a Donate button, so families and donors both have a clear next step.