ZeroWaste

An AI-powered system that calls restaurants to get food donations for homeless people.

🎥 Watch Demo Video

The Problem

Restaurants throw away tons of good food every day. At the same time, homeless people don't have enough to eat. There's no easy way to connect the two.

How It Works

1. AI Calls Restaurants - Our program automatically calls restaurants using VAPI AI voice technology to ask if they have extra food to donate.

2. Collects Information - The AI asks about what food is available, when it can be picked up, where to get it, and if they're willing to donate.

3. Saves Donations - When a restaurant says yes, all the details get saved to our server automatically.

4. Food Gets Distributed - The food is picked up and given to people who need it.

Tech Stack

• VAPI AI - for the voice calls
• Python - to run the calling script
• Node.js + Express - for the server
• REST APIs - to connect everything

Setup

1. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt
npm install

2. Create a .env file with your VAPI credentials:

VAPI_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
VAPI_ASSISTANT_ID=your_assistant_id_here
VAPI_PHONE_NUMBER_ID=your_phone_number_id_here

3. Add phone numbers to phone_numbers.txt (one per line)

Running the App

1. Start the server:

node server.js

2. Run the calling script (in another terminal):

python main.py

The Python script will call each phone number, the AI will talk to the restaurants, and the server will log all the donation info to donations.txt.

Why It Matters

This project reduces food waste, helps homeless people get meals, and automates the whole process so it can scale up to help more people.

Built By

Nicholas & Dennis for CodeKong Hackathon 2025