ATLANTA — One Atlanta-based app makes it easy for community members to help families this holiday season.
The app known as "Purposity" is a platform that shows community needs in real-time and allows users a chance to provide support through purchases. It connects over 60 school districts across Georgia, including every school district in the metro, app founder Blake Canterbury said.
To expand their impact, the app introduced blue "Purposity" Christmas trees, which are stationed at several locations across the metro.
Quick Response, better known as QR codes, are located on ornaments that can be scanned to unlock specific needs posted on the app by Atlanta families.
Items purchased on the app are then delivered directly to the families who requested them. Since the launch of the Blue Tree initiative, thousands of needs have been submitted by families in schools and the community.
"Almost 80% of those requests this holiday season are coming from local school districts right down the road from you," Canterbury said. "They're making sure that kids have coats for Christmas and the Christmas toys that they actually were hoping for."
Fayette County Public Schools (FCPS) is one metro school district partnered with Purposity. A blue tree is on display inside the district's main office as part of their partnership.
"We become aware of needs from students through different avenues," Elaine Pollock, a school social worker at FCPS, said. "Sometimes, we might have a student request or ask for something. Sometimes a parent might reach out and ask for something, and then other times it may be an observed need by school staff."
Regardless of how needs come to the district's attention, they're loaded onto the app.
Virginia Gibbs, Coordinator of Innovative Partnership Development at FCPS, explained requests for warm coats, long-sleeved shirts, and shoes have been uploaded onto the platform as the weather becomes colder.
With 24 schools under FCPS, the partnership with the Atlanta-based app began after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Gibbs, $23,000 worth of individual needs were met in 2022 alone with the app.