San Joaquin Valley Snacks wins Rep. David G. Valadao’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in California’s 21st District

When asked what inspired the creation of San Joaquin Valley Snacks, the students said, ”We were inspired to create this app because we understood the foreign feeling people might get when visiting the valley and like any other place. We wanted to make an app that was a quick and easy process for families and friends to find cool locations to dine in and get to know the place they are visiting.
When coming up with an app, one must think about what the user wants to know or do. In our case, we put ourselves in people who were visiting and wanted to know a good place to eat that wasn’t a chain restaurant.
For example, Alyson recalls a moment during the summer when someone from Coalinga asked her what was good to eat around Kingsburg. She remembers saying a few common places downtown, but she struggled to remember. After that conversation, she thought about how easy it would be to answer their question if only she had all of the information in one place. Sure, doing a Google Search on good places to eat around you might be a good option when you don’t know much about the area, but even with common apps for this situation like Yelp can be too broad and not include everything. They also may not have the right area you are looking for and probably work better in bigger cities. This app makes it more personal with our experiences and the fact that it is focused on small town business’ or hidden business’ in a city.”