Table of Contents
{ Background }
BetaNYC is working to create a citywide database of supermarkets and other food stores’ hours for seniors, people that are immunocompromised, and emergency workers. For this to happen, we want an open framework for crowdsourcing this data.
Around the world seniors and immunocompromised individuals have been given special accommodation at a number of retail places. Most of these places reserve a few hours so this vulnerable population can shop with dignity AND not have to worry. See NY Post.
Because this virus will be with us for the foreseeable future, we imagine segmented hours for the foreseeable future. The BetaNYC team has been reaching out to all relevant city agencies and can validate that this is a real need and no one else is working on it. Now, we’re in the process of pulling together data and partners.
In NYC, this is an interesting issue. The mayor does not control supermarket hours. Hours can be suggested by the City of New York, but can only be enforced by the State of New York. Since nothing is being pushed by both levels of government, we feel that building a database and later a web map and other forms (newsletters, SMS, APIs) will be helpful for communities to get the access to buy food and other goods.
Stores and hours constantly will change due to staffing and other issues. This will require a lot of effort from volunteers to crowdsource data, official sources via surveys and merging of existing lists, to have the most up accurate and up to date data.
Nationally, we’re identifying partners, collaborating on a data schema, and scaffolding out a data collection workflow.
For NYC, we’ll be building out a “Senior Hours / immunocompromised hours” map.
{ Help us collect data / this is what we are doing }
Right now, we’re standardizing data from a various number of resources. We’ve helped NYC Food Policy Center, Who’s Open in Queens, and East Village – EVGrieve manage their datasets and eventually add it to a citywide database.
{ Send us your data }
We want to help you get your data into this format and help us build a unified database of vulnerable population hours.
{ Start Collecting Data }
Here is the template we are using to collect data.
- Google spreadsheet template ( Use this google sheet to start collecting your own data. If you have questions about it, find us in slack or email us at hours@beta.nyc )
- Airtable template (this contains the 14k food vendors AND preliminary data we’re collecting from partners)
{ Help us develop the tools }
This is a monumental project and we’ve wanted to give it a bit of consideration before hopping into building a data collection tool to service 8.5+ million New Yorkers. We’re still very much in the planning collaboration phase of collecting data and determining the right partners. Our first pass at existing food vendors in NYC gave us 14,000+ locations! That’s bodegas & 7/11s, fruit/vegetable vendors, and supermarkets! That’s quite a bit of data to validate.
Slack
We use Slack.com as a tool to stay connected to each other. Please join us by visiting https://slack.beta.nyc to request an invite. Then, you can login to https://betanyc.slack.com and join us in #app-covid-foodaccess
For more information about slack, visit Slack’s help center.
Contact the dev-team at hours{a/t}beta{d0t}nyc.
{ Data format / Columns}
These are the required columns, we would like everyone to have. It is important we collect hours, accessibility, government programs, and delivery options. Not all national retail hour databases collect data about accessibility and government support programs.
| Column Name | Description | Examples |
| Name | Name of establishment | |
| Unique ID | A unique number or string to help identify this record | 633813 |
| Last Updated | When was the information last updated or collected. | 3/30/2020 12:21pm3/30 |
| Source | Source of dataset. URL, name of person, or picture. | John S.https://www.instagram.com/ |
| Contact Info | Email or phone number of establishment | (718) 000-0000hello@nyc.com |
| Type | Establishment type | Grocery storeSupermarketPharmacyLaundromat |
| Address | Address including City, State, and Zip Code. | 123-12 4RD AVE, FLUSHING, NY 11232 |
| Status | Open or Closed | OpenClosed |
| Hours | General text, leave blank of Closed | Monday – Friday 7am-7pm and Saturday and Sunday 9am-7pmEveryday 7am-7pm |
| Special accommodation hours | General text, leave blank if None | Tuesdays-Thursdays 7am-8am |
| Accepts SNAP/EBT | Yes, No, and other Notes | Yes, In store only. Yes, Delivery & Store. |
| Accepts WIC | Yes, No, and other Notes | Yes, In store only. Yes, Delivery & Store. |
| Offers Delivery | Yes, No, and other Notes |
We are also collecting these columns:
- Emergency Worker hours
- Accessible entrance
- Offers Pickup/ Takeout
- Delivery/ Pickup Notes
- Links or text to various delivery or pickup platforms
- Latitude/Longitude (this can auto generated)
- Other Notes
- Fundraisers and gift cards links
- Social distancing rules and face mask/glove requirements
- Amount and Type of Supplies in Stores