Every day, usable food and supplies are thrown away while shelters nearby run short. The gap is not a lack of generosity. It is coordination: donations expire, riders cancel, and shelters’ needs change faster than a phone call can track.
Second Serve is a real-time platform that closes that gap. Donors such as restaurants, hostels and pharmacies post surplus with a quantity and an expiry time. The system matches each donation to a volunteer rider on the closest route and to a shelter with current demand. Riders get a clear pickup and drop-off path. Shelters see incoming deliveries and confirm receipt. Admins oversee the whole flow from one dashboard.
The platform is built to handle real-world failures, not just the happy path:
Rider failure: if a rider drops out, the donation is automatically reassigned.
Expiring donations: items close to expiry are prioritised and rerouted to the nearest shelter.
Shelter demand changes: allocations update when a shelter’s needs change.
Ghost reservations: claims that are never picked up time out and release the donation back into the pool.
A built-in simulation panel lets anyone trigger these events and watch the system re-allocate live.
Loops House
