Surplus Food Redistribution and Donation Platform

This is the official repository for our MERN stack project aimed at reducing food waste by connecting donors with NGOs.

Project Setup Instructions

Follow these steps carefully to get the project running on your local machine.

1. Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following software installed:

• Node.js (LTS version)
• Git
• VS Code (Recommended)

2. Getting the Code

First, clone the repository to your machine:

git clone https://github.com/your-username/your-repo-name.git cd surplus-food-platform

3. Backend Setup

The backend server runs on Node.js and connects to our shared database.

1. Navigate to the server directory: cd server
2. Install all required packages: npm install
3. IMPORTANT: Configure Environment Variables
   • Create a copy of the .env.example file and name it .env.
   • Open the new .env file.
   • Ask the team leader for the MONGO_URI connection string and paste it as the value for MONGO_URI.
4. Start the backend server: npm run dev

The server should now be running at http://localhost:5001.

4. Frontend Setup

The frontend is a React application.

1. Open a new terminal window.
2. Navigate to the client directory from the project root: cd client
3. Install all required packages: npm install
4. Start the frontend application: npm start

Your browser should automatically open to http://localhost:3000. You are now ready to code!