This episode is one in the Helping Hands series, where I highlight people in our community doing nonprofit or mission-based work. I recently was introduced to a couple of youth-led initiatives around the subject of food insecurity and food waste. So I sat down for two conversations, one with a group of the Troop 30 Scouts based in Watertown, about their Scouting for Food that they do every November that collects multiple tons of food for the Watertown Food Pantry. After that, I chatted with Max Gershberg, a local high schooler about an app called FoodXChange, he's developed with a couple other co-founders that aims to engage communities at the household level to reduce food waste.
Released November 2nd, 2026
(Click here to listen on streaming apps) (Full transcript below)
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Learn more about FoodXchange at their website.
Keep on eye out for flyers for Troop 30’s Scouting for Food on November 21st. Learn more about the Troop at their website.
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Thanks to podcast promotional partner the Watertown Business Coalition, a nonprofit organization focused on connecting local businesses and strengthening our community. Check them out at watertownbusinesscoalition.com.
Thanks to promotional partner Watertown News, a Watertown-focused online newspaper. Check them out at watertownmanews.com.
Thank you to The Helping Hand series sponsor Watertown Savings Bank!
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
Transcript
Matt 0:02
Hi there. Welcome to the Little Local Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode I sit down for a conversation to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This episode is one in the Helping Hands series, where I highlight people in our community doing nonprofit or mission-based work. And thank you to Watertown Savings Bank, who sponsors the Helping Hands series. I recently was introduced to a couple of youth-led initiatives around the subject of food insecurity and food waste. So I sat down for two conversations, one with a group of the Troop 30 Scouts based in Watertown, about their Scouting for Food that they do every November that collects multiple tons of food for the Watertown Food Pantry. After that, I chatted with Max Gershberg, a local high schooler whose parents own the Italian Design Interiors store here in Watertown. And I talked with him about a unique app called FoodXChange, he's developed with a couple other co-founders that aims to engage communities at the household level to reduce food waste. One quick thing before we jump into the conversation. I’m currently running the 2nd annual Little Local Holiday Giveaway, where if you sign up as a monthly supporter of the podcast, you’ll get a gift card or other gift from a great local business. I have over $1,300 worth of gifts to give away so lots of good stuff. I’ll give more details at the end of the episode or you can pause the episode, head over to LittleLocalConversations.com slash Friend, to become a Little Local Friend. Then come back to listen.
Matt 1:25
Alright, let's start the conversation with my sit down with the Troop30 Scouts.
James 1:32
I'm James Lipscomb. I've been in the Scouting program for the majority of my life. I've been in it since I was, I think, in second, third grade in the younger Scouting program before joining the main troop in fifth, sixth grade. I go to Watertown High School. I'm in sophomore year, so 15. I've been to all of the Scouting for Foods we were going to be talking about in the session, and I've had a great time throughout my whole life.
Shane 2:05
My name is Shane Devlin. I'm an 11th grader at Watertown High School, and I'm 17 years old. And I've been in Scouting. Well, I started as a Wolf Scout, so that was probably in elementary school. And I've been in Scouting, yeah, probably half of my life as well.
Noah 2:21
Well, I'm Noah. I think I've been in Scouts for four years, four or five years now. I go to Newton North High School. I am 16 and I'm a junior.
Xavier 2:31
I'm Xavier Owens. I've been in Scouts for seven or eight years, I want to say. I go to Watertown High. I'm a sophomore, so I'm 15.
Caitlin 2:40
Hi, I'm Caitlin Devlin. I've been in Scouts for probably nine years now, and I go to Watertown High School and I'm 17.
Matt 2:49
Great. Thank you for introducing yourselves. Thanks for being here with me. So you guys do a special program with the troops that's called Scouting for Food. Who wants to explain what is Scouting for Food?
James 3:00
Scouting for Food is our food drive program. We started off trying to get people to buy food from a list when going in and out of the grocery store. It worked semi-well. We were able to get a good amount of food, but it wasn't that engaging to be just sitting outside the entryway to the store and just asking people for help. So when COVID hit and we decided to switch our method, we decided to start handing out flyers. Then after a week, we just said leave the bags out front. And we were just shocked when we went to go look and see how much we got. And we brought it all down. We would put it on a scale, weigh it out. It was sort of a friendly competition of see who could get the most. And then we put it in boxes and brought it to the food pantry in Watertown. And we sorted it into bins. We had people going in and out of the building at all times. There was just more and more coming. And we just sort of watched the number grow and we were all like shocked how much better it worked compared to the old method. And we have the numbers here, and I'll let someone else talk about that. But it's just been such a successful program more than we ever thought it could be.
Matt 4:06
Yeah. So you call yourself just the Scouts, the Boy Scouts. What is it? What is it called now? Because Kat was saying you are a little different than I remember when I was a kid. So tell us a little bit about your troop too.
Caitlin 4:17
We're called just Scouting now. And our troop was like probably one of the first troops that kind of did mixed gender type stuff. And now the rest of Scouting is following.
Matt 4:27
And you're troop number 30, I can see on your badges there, based in Watertown. And when you said you were gathering all this food, was this the whole troop? Were there separate groups of the troop putting this together? Were you all working as one group?
Noah 4:41
So we mainly divide up all the work between all of us. So how it works is we each individually get flyers sent to us, and you are able to print the flyer out on your own, take the flyer, and you go around your neighborhood, anywhere, and place them in all the different houses in the neighborhood. Everybody's working together and we're all one big team.
Matt 5:02
Nice. So you were mentioning some of those numbers before , someone else want to talk about the numbers that you guys have come up with in the past handful of years, because these are some pretty big numbers when I'm looking at this sheet of paper here.
Xavier 5:14
So usually we get between two and three tons. In 2021, we did two food drives. So in total, we got 10,000 pounds.
Matt 5:24
How does that come in? Obviously, that's not just one car. Like, how does that come in? Is it over the course of a week? Is it the course over a month? How does that two to three tons actually show up to you guys?
Xavier 5:34
So usually the Scouts will go around and collect the bags from the families that they flyered and then bring them all to the food pantry. So usually it's a couple cars with a bunch of food.
James 5:48
I think it's important to mention that we also get all of the food in in one day and like the span of one afternoon. It may take one or two weeks to hand out the flyers, get people to decide, but we set the collection date and maybe Friday, Thursday, and then that weekend, one day, one afternoon, all the food gets to one spot and gets delivered and sorted and all that, and it's like a huge community event for the whole troop.
Shane 6:14
We sort all the food in the food pantry , in the Watertown food pantry. They keep that food and then they'll distribute it to the families that come to the Watertown food pantry. So for us, it's just we collect and then give it to them, and then they're the ones that keep it there and distribute it to the families that need that food.
Matt 6:32
So why is this an important project for your troop?
Noah 6:36
I think it's really important because it really helps out the community and it shows that we're always there to help them, and then we're the ones that can help make this town, the world a better place, and try to inspire others to follow us and help their community as well.
James 6:51
I'd like to share sort of a personal story I had of sort of developed through Scouting where I had to find an organization to spend some service hours at. And I picked the food pantry just because of my familiarity with it. I've been working for it this whole time because of this Scouting for Food that we do every year. I really started to look forward to going there. It was really fulfilling. And now I think when I do it this year, I'm gonna be even more excited to help out the community because I've just seen how wonderful the people over at the food pantry are. And it's really cool to see where all the food is going. It was so nice to see people throughout different weeks over and over. It was so nice to see smiling faces.
Caitlin 7:33
Just to add to that, I know it kind of sounds cliche, but I feel like with Scouts, since we do so many like community service projects, especially with Scouting for Food, I feel like it's kind of taught me like how important community service is. And like James said, it's kind of fulfilling when you do any type of community service. Like now, you know, obviously for high school, we need like a certain number of community service hours. But now that I've done this kind of stuff with food pantry, like I kind of look forward to just doing community service just to experience it and like get to know people.
Shane 8:06
I think something that's also kind of cool about the food drive is that it's kind of like unifying because some of our neighbors, like year after year, they'll leave little notes because like they're expecting the food drive to happen and they tend to be a little more generous and giving.
Matt 8:21
Round it out.
Xavier 8:22
I think that it's also worth mentioning that every year the food pantry tells us that we are doing great work and that we're keeping their pantry stocked for like a month or more.
Matt 8:33
So this year, you're doing it again. What can you tell me about what you're planning for this year?
James 8:39
So this year's Scouting for Food will be on Saturday, November 21st. So if you want to donate, if you hear about it from here or from the flyers, you could buy food before then, leave it out on your porch, and we'll try our best to grab it. We'll bring it over to the food pantry's new location.
Matt 8:56
Yeah. And what type of food can people leave? How can they reach out to you? All those other details.
Noah 9:02
So the type of food that we usually collect or we usually like prefer people send us are mostly canned goods, not really like fresh produce we don't really accept, but more just like rice, canned goods, we accept fruit cups, those work too. Really anything that can go for a while without going bad. We also collect animal food, so like cat food, dog food, collect that for families who don't have the money to buy food for their pets.
Matt 9:31
Maybe a quick thing, if this helps draw out anything, is there a like craziest amount of some food item that you've collected over the years? Like, man, that was a 10-gallon jar of mayonnaise or something crazy. I don't know. Anything like that.
James 9:42
This isn't a food, but I distinctly remember when I was in middle school, I was going through the bags and bags of stuff we got, and I saw a big cardboard box, and I was like, what could possibly be in here? And I opened it up because it was completely unlabeled and it looked like it'd been like packaged over with packaging tape, ripped it up with some scissors, and I just saw it completely unpackaged, just like 500 toothbrushes, just hundreds and hundreds of toothbrushes and dental product. It was really hilarious. I was like, guys, come over here, look at this. But it was then I was like, yeah, a lot of people need this. This is a really important non-food item, and I'm really glad that someone took their time out of their day to be like, maybe there's some other stuff that isn't on this flyer that we could need.
Matt 10:21
Yeah. Nice. Maybe you want to handle the details of how do people reach out to you.
Xavier 10:27
So if you do get a flyer, you can just leave your food out on the porch on November 21st and they'll pick it up. I don't know about other people, but I put my phone number on the flyer. So if you leave something out after or like you didn't get a flyer or something, you can text with your address and we'll pick it up.
Matt 10:48
Gotcha, so basically keep an eye out for these flyers up in your neighborhood . When do you guys start putting the flyers up so people can expect to look for them?
James 10:56
We normally put them out around a week to nine days before.
Matt 11:01
Yeah. Well, you guys just want to say goodbye for the podcast.
Caitlin 11:05
Bye.
James 11:05
Goodbye, thank you.
Noah 11:06
Come to our food drive, November 21st. Thank you.
Max 11:13
I'm Max Gershberg, and I'm one of the co-founders of the FoodXChange. I have two other co-founders, Eric and Idan. Idan is based out more in California, and Eric is also local, but he couldn't really do anything today. We developed the FoodXChange, which is an app to share surplus food with local neighbors. So, an example that I like to give everyone is with cereal. So, say you have an extra box of cereal, right? And you don't want to eat it and you're planning on throwing it out. Our app serves as a medium for you to post it and for someone else to pick it up. So not only are you kind of alleviating that guilt of contributing to the major food waste issue today, but you're also sharing food with someone that could have possibly needed it that day. That's why we feel so passionate about it, is because it serves as a means of communication that is directed right towards food. And I think that's something that we could really use. And it's not even on the donating side or anything. It could be as simple as all the way back in the day when neighbors used to ask a neighbor for a cup of milk or for some sugar. The idea could also be the same in that sense, and that this is just another way to bring communities and neighbors together again.
Matt 12:31
Yeah. So, how did this idea come up for you guys? Like how, why was this something you were talking about? Yeah, where did it come from?
Max 12:37
So I was sitting in my kitchen one day and I was watching my mom pack up for a trip that we were about to go on. We were gonna go on a two-week trip. My mom had went grocery shopping maybe a week ago, and I just saw her emptying out her fridge, and I started adding the numbers up in my head of like, okay, that's $10, that's $15, that's $20, like just the amount of food that was being thrown out. And I just knew that someone nearby could have used it. I mean, I hear all over the news every single day, and I'm sure that everyone does too, about the major food issues that we have with food insecurity and food waste. And I just didn't see a tool that was built to really counter that on the neighborhood level. And that's when I decided to bring Eric and Idan on to develop the FoodXchange.
Matt 13:30
So are they more of the tech guys and you were kind of the idea guy?
Max 13:37
So Idan is more of the tech guy. He's behind more of the back-end code of the website and the app. Eric is more of a reach out person. So whenever we go and we want to launch a new pilot program or we want to speak with universities or programs for food, he's always the one that will send out those emails and those follow-ups and make that connect. And then once we get into the meeting place, that's where I tend to step in a little bit and kind of explain and develop the idea to people to show them the value. So I'm more of the idea guy to answer your question directly, more of the pitch idea guy. Eric is more of the reach out marketing, and then Idan is more of the tech.
Matt 14:22
Gotcha. And how do you guys know each other?
Max 14:24
So Idan is actually my second cousin from my father's side, and Eric is a former classmate. He used to come to my school Star Academy, but he eventually left and went to Needham. Yeah, and how old are you guys? So I am 17. Eric is, I think Eric's 17. I don't remember. And then Idan is 16, I'm pretty sure. And he's a year below us. He's a junior, while me and Eric are both seniors.
Matt 14:53
Yeah. So how did a group of you three young guys getting together do this? How did this come together? So, like, did you immediately think, oh, this is going to be an app? Or were you hashing out different ideas, or was it immediately like, we should have an app? How did it come together?
Max 15:06
Well, it to be honest, it kind of started with playing on. Do you know what base 44 is?
Matt 15:11
I don't.
Max 15:12
Okay, so base 44 is basically like this website that allows you to kind of quote unquote build apps, but it doesn't really give you the back end for it or anything. It kind of just gives you a domain as to what it would look like, but in website form. So honestly, I just started plugging ideas into there and seeing how it would manifest itself into an app. I went through the ideas of like a website or possibly a program that just could be sponsored at some sort of city event or something where we have just a meeting place and we talk about how we can exchange food and just spread awareness of the topic. And then when on exploring on base 44, I thought of the idea of an app and how we are such a technological society nowadays, and the means and the forms of communication have changed from, you know, our mouths to our keyboards. And that's when I thought that if I wanted to counter an issue that is relevant in today's society, then I need to use today's form of communication, which is why we decided to develop the app. And then we worked for give or take around a year, developing it, making sure we have every feature that we wanted on the app, and really deciding exactly how we wanted it to portray. It's on the app store right now, but yeah, that's why we decided to go with an app.
Matt 16:38
Yeah. So where are you at now? It sounds like you're still in the early stages, your beta testing with different groups, or yeah, where are you at now?
Max 16:47
So basically, right now, what we're focusing on is we're doing something called university pilot testing, in which we reached out over the summer, we reached out to a bunch of different schools over the East Coast. And we did hear back from a couple. We heard back from BU and the University of Maine. With BU, we reached out to their student leadership email, and we were able to get into contact with Lucas Sean, who's the head of the Nutrition and Dietics Club at BU. And we spoke with him about running our app within unison to like a program in his club, in the sense that our app would become a new initiative that they put out. The BU Nutrition and Dietics Club, they have a lot of programs. They do food rescue runs where they'll take vans and they'll go pick up food from like leftover catering events or something like that, and they'll take it back and distribute it. But we came to them with the idea that you can do all of this stuff on the mass level and you can take food from one place to another and try and distribute it. But if you want real community connection and if you want something that works on the person-to-person basis, there needs to be, you need to have a tool for that. And that's when we went into a Zoom call and we pitched them the FoodXchange and talked to them about how it would work on campus and that campuses are a very close and tight community, in which stuff like exchanging food between dorms is a lot easier than exchanging food across town. So students were ultimately the easiest beta testers for us. We're able to give them that app, and if they have anything else left, they just post it. And then with BU, we went to the, do you know what Splash is? It's basically like their activity and club fair. And we went to Splash and we had our own stand. We spoke with a bunch of BU students, got a good amount of downloads, just really spread our message out there. And then after that, we went to the first nutrition and dietics club meeting in which we also presented the FoodXchange and asked all of the people inside of the club to be first pilot testers and post stuff. So that's what we're doing with BU right now. And with U Maine, we're in the works of actually launching the FoodXchange with the school instead of within the school. So with BU, we've launched it with a club. So BU is a huge school. So getting the support by someone from like the higher ups is a lot harder at a school like that. But at the University of Maine, we're speaking with their head of sustainability of some sorts, and they're talking with the dean to launch it with the school and have an email sent out and pings and students download it. And within all of our campus pilots, when you sign up with your edu email, so if you have like BU.edu email, it'll put you in a circle in which you will see either general listings of your area and then another tab that you can click and you'll be able to see the students in your school and what they're posting.
Matt 20:09
Gotcha.
Matt 20:10
Yeah, maybe we should talk a little bit about how the app works exactly. So, like I said, I'm at school, I'm going away for a week, I got this extra bread and peanut butter, whatever, you know, and I don't want it to sit there. How am I getting that to somebody?
Max 20:25
Yeah, so from you know, first principles, you go into the app store, you download the FoodXchange, and then once you open up the FoodXchange, you'll sign up. Sign up process is super easy, takes 30 seconds tops, email, name, phone number, do the verification process to ensure that you know you are you. And then it's as simple as going, clicking the plus button on the bottom, and with either an AI scanner, which we have, or a barcode scanner, or you can make the listing yourself. You'll take a photo of the food and you'll fill out a description, the amount. We have an allergen mode on the FoodXchange, which when you click on it, it allows you to hide listings that you're allergic to. So that even if you know you did see a listing and you want to pick it up, you couldn't because you put it as you're allergic to nuts and the listing is nuts. So you would put in what components of that are within it.
Matt 21:25
You can get the base, what is it, like seven major allergens? Yeah. Those categories.
Max 21:30
Yeah, so you fill out those categories, then you post a pickup time that's like most available to you. So you could do all day, noon, evening, anything of that sort. And then you can add in any extra details. We have a little section where you can add extra details and describe any further needs or things that you want people to know about your listing. And with the AI scanners and the barcode scanners, if it's going to detect that there's something wrong with your product. That it's expired or it doesn't qualify under the allowed products for the FoodXchange, it won't let you post the listing. But yeah, as soon as you post it, someone in your area will get a notification. And if they want it, they'll reach out to you.
Matt 22:15
And then how do you talk? How do you set up, you know, if anyone's done like buy nothing pickups trying to arrange someone to actually get something that's free? So how does it work in your app?
Max 22:25
So basically we have an in-app messaging system. We wanted to keep it as much in the app more than outside. We don't want people to go to means of texts or other social medias. We want them to kind of stay on the app and communicate through the app to ensure the most, the utmost safety for the user. But yeah, the coordinating would go through the app.
Matt 22:48
But then, like you picked an option like 12 p.m. So then the other person would say, Yeah, 12 p.m. works for me. And then is this something with food, can you just leave it outside, or does it have to be a physical exchange, or how does it work?
Max 23:00
Honestly, it's up to your discretion. With food, it does vary because non-perishables, canned foods and stuff like that have longer shelf life, and therefore could be for say you needed to leave it out for like 30 minutes or an hour or something. I don't think that there would be much of an issue. But also, we encourage to be met in public open spaces. It's all up to the user. We are not necessarily there to monitor every single exchange and do like that, although we do take our safety very important and we look at any reports and stuff like that. We are an intermediary service that just allows people to exchange food.
Matt 23:44
That's another interesting thing. What about regulatory stuff you have to go through since it's a food-based program, you know?
Max 23:51
Yeah, so there is regulatory stuff we have to go through. Things like half-eaten sandwiches and open stuff, things like that. They leave opportunities for food poisoning, stuff like that. That's the last thing that we want. Although we don't want food to go to waste, there has to be a certain line where it's like, okay, this is something that could be safely given to a neighbor next door versus this is something that could be, could be not, which is why we have to be extremely careful and put guidelines that you'll be able to see as soon as you like as soon as you click the plus button, you'll be able to see the guidelines pop up. And it'll tell you there what you are allowed to post, what you're not allowed to post. Not like a half-eaten pizza.
Matt 24:37
Right. It seems pretty, pretty common sense, but yeah.
Max 24:40
Yeah.
Matt 24:41
Yeah. So how many people have actually used this? How many people have you had using it so far?
Max 24:45
So so far, I do not have the exact numbers because I'm not on the tech side, but I think we've had 30 to 40 users so far, aside from our testing, in which we have like an additional 40, but we've had a couple people posting and picking up. It definitely hasn't reached the community as much as we kind of wanted it to at first. But with something like this, it's not about trying to manually manufacture your community and kind of make people do this and make people do that. It's about trying to ease the community into using an app like this and get them comfortable with the idea so that it'll spread easier through word of mouth or from person to
Max 25:33
person.
Matt 25:33
And beyond the schools, have you reached out to any, like we're sitting here in Watertown, like any of the municipalities or whatever places are you trying to get engaged with this?
Max 25:43
Yeah. So right now it is predominantly universities and stuff because we're still in like a beta pilot testing. So we are trying to really, really perfect it before we start reaching out to other communities to really get the ball rolling. We want to make sure that the app is in the utmost functionality and that all the features needed are there. But we've been looking into different food banks and food organizations to see if we could possibly launch an app in cooperation with theirs so that if people have, you know, food that they may have picked up from the food bank that they don't necessarily need anymore, there is a way to connect them to another person who might need that product. And also just recently talking with some politicians, trying to get like a sense as to where we can see the FoodXchange be plugged into the future. So possible government programs, certain things like that. But yeah, for now, because it's pilot testing, we're looking more into university pilots. But post that we'll start looking into food banks and we'll start looking into city councils and seeing how we can possibly get it launched in certain I'll give you an example, like for Watertown. Within Watertown, there could be certain events in which we could have a FoodXchange stand and talk to the Watertown people and say, hey, you guys are a tight-knit community. And that in addition to helping the food waste issue on the household level, something like FoodXchange in a town like Watertown could really bring that neighborhood spark. And I really would, I really would love to see something like that play out.
Matt 27:29
Yeah. Yeah. Watertown is an easy place to, there's a lot of community already. And if you give them a tool, they usually take off with it. So yeah, what's your beyond Watertown? What is your, you know, the classic, what's your five to ten years out? What do you envision FoodXchange looks like?
Max 27:46
Well, five to ten years out is a good amount of time. By then, I think that FoodXchange will be spread across the country. I think that its use is so applicable among a variety of different communities, I don't see why it wouldn't be able to. But I think the issue that we're kind of facing, or at least I know that we will be facing, is that you could have a thousand, a thousand five hundred users, but if they're spread out all over the country, the app's purpose is pretty much useless. So our idea for expansion and how we foresee the FoodXchange be spread across the country is by launching it in little packets. And that's why we use universities. With universities, not only do we get pilot testing, but with universities, we're also able to create like a flagship for the FoodXchange and spread to surrounding towns and communities and use the school as a hook onto those areas. So our hopes is that with the development in more university pilots, like for example, after BU and U Maine, we did a second round of follow-ups to the schools in the East Coast, and we got responses and are trying to work with UMass Amherst and Northeastern now. So the more kind of repertoire that we build with launching programs, having students use it, getting that good data, and then just reaching out again, we're able to keep on connecting and building a bigger network of university pilot schools for the FoodXchange that we can use to then spread to surrounding towns. So for UMass Amherst, Amherst, the town, is extremely tight with the university. So if something like the FoodXchange, if you didn't know UMass Amherst just launched a, I think a $130 million food initiative for food innovation and figuring out different ways to solve food waste problems. If we launched the FoodXchange over there, especially after a program like this got released, I think that we would have the support and the back end of the UMass Amherst community to spread into the town and see that day-to-day use. But yeah, that's kind of where we see it. We see it really spreading across the country and having a lot of people using it. That's my vision.
Matt 30:19
Yeah. Community by community.
Max 30:20
Exactly.
Matt 30:21
Yeah. Well, before I just ask, like, you know, how do people find it and get involved if they want or anything like that, is there anything I didn't hit on that you wanted to talk more about ?
Max 30:31
I think a pretty important part to mention about the FoodXchange, which I've said it in a kind of a different way almost, but I wanted to say it directly is that food waste is targeted on the municipal and on the state level, but it's never targeted on the household level. You without even realizing it constantly throughout food, probably hundreds of pounds a year. And it's those hundreds of pounds that not just for you, but for every household around and just spread out and out and out, it adds up. Massachusetts has a goal to divert a certain amount , a billion pounds of food waste. And I really do see the FoodXchange being something that targets that household level and starts connecting those neighbors again and starts helping food waste become an issue of the past.
Matt 31:28
Yeah. No, that sounds like a welcome reframing of some of the issues. Yeah. Sounds great to me. I'd love to see it in Watertown when it gets to that point. I think it would definitely be able to hook into some systems already here easily. So but yeah, if people want to find out more about it, want to find out more about the program or download the app, reach out to you if they want to help out some way, all that information. Where can they find you?
Max 31:51
Yeah, sure. Well, we have a website, thefoodxchange.com.
Matt 31:56
And it's X change. There's no E at the beginning.
Max 32:02
Yes. That's something that I had to explain to a lot of people when they wanted to find us. Yes.
Matt 32:06
You gotta have like a food X change.
Max 32:09
There is no E. It's X, like the X on the logo of our app. And then you could also just find us on the App Store, check it out for yourself. It's just the FoodXchange. Our logo is like a green background with this white X in it. So you can just find it through there.
Matt 32:28
Yeah. Are you gonna have it on Android?
Max 32:30
We're working on Android right now. Getting approval for apps is incredibly hard. But we just got approved for Apple and we're pushing more updates through there. So once we have like a nice solid version after BU pilot testing and making sure that all the kind of loose ends are tied up within the back end of the code, we'll be able to apply to release it on Android and Google Play Store and all the other platforms. I mean, if we're planning to, you know, spread across the country, we definitely have to take into consideration that not everybody's gonna use an Apple iPhone.
Matt 33:04
Right. Cool. Any again, any other details we didn't hit on?
Max 33:08
Yeah, I think just one more thing about the college programs that I forgot to mention to you that I think would be good to include is that we're actually starting college ambassador programs. Basically, what we're doing is we're gonna be taking a select group of students from 10 to 12 students, give them kind of an internship opportunity almost to help spread the FoodXchange on their campus, which would help us get not only media coverage, but also campus coverage. We would be having marketing majors, nutrition majors, people going on campus and just speaking about it. It would be a whole team and group of people that would all be incentivized towards spreading our message and spreading the app. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about that in case you're a student listening and you're from the some of the schools that we're gonna be doing pilot testing with and launching campus ambassador programs to tell you to apply.
Matt 34:06
Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks for taking the time to sit down and chat about what you got going on.
Max 34:12
Of course.
Matt 34:12
Sounds exciting. I hope to see it grow and hope to see it around.
Max 34:16
Thank you.
Matt 34:19
So that's it for this Helping Hand episode. I'll have information in the show notes about Troop 30's food drive and info on FoodXchange. If you want to hear more episodes of the podcast, you can also head over to LittleLocalConversations.com. There you can find all the episodes, information on upcoming live podcast events, and sign up for my weekly email newsletter. You can also take part in the Little Local Holiday Giveaway that's running right now through November 25th. At the website, you can click on the Become a Little Local Friend button in the menu. Anyone who signs up at $5 a month to support the podcast will win a great local prize. I've got gifts from Actors' Shakespeare Project, Arsenal Yards' Buttermilk and Bourbon, Condesa, Medium Rare, and Tori Jiro, Artemis Yoga, Branch Line, Coffee Plus 254, Caldwell's Miscellaneous Fancy Goods, Campolongo Cookie Company, Cass School of Floral Design, Eastern Clothing, Fastachi, Gore Place, Historical Society of Watertown, Mosesian Center for the Arts, and Mount Auburn Cemetery and their Solstice. Which the first prize will be given out on November 13th, where I'll be randomly selecting a little local friend to get two tickets to Mount Auburn Cemetery's Solstice. The rest of the prizes will be given out the day after Thanksgiving, or if enough people sign up, then if I run out of guests before then. Alright, and I want to give a thank you to Watertown Savings Bank, who sponsors the Helping Hands series. Really appreciate it. Great folks over there. There's a reason why, actually you'll hear about the Watertown Business Coalition later in my thank yous, but the Watertown Business Coalition is doing their Community Impact Awards this year, and Watertown Savings Bank is one of the award winners because they do things like this, giving back to the community. So thank you, Watertown Savings Bank. Alright, and I want to give a few shout outs here to wrap things up. I want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council, who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast. So I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. You can find out more about them at WatertownCulturalCouncil.org and MassCulturalCouncil.org. And a couple more shoutouts to promotional partners. First, the Watertown Business Coalition. Their motto is Community is Our Business. Find out more about them and their events at WatertownBusinessCoalition.com. And lastly, Watertown News, which is a Watertown focused online newspaper. It's a great place to keep up to date with everything going on in the city. Check that out at WatertownMANews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.
