Tannenbaumaktion Bissendorf is the yearly Christmas tree collection in my community. After the holidays, households leave the tree at the curb and the Pfarrjugend collects it street by street. I am one of the members who help organize the action. Donations help fund the youth camp, including places for children whose families could not otherwise afford the trip.

I designed and built the public site at tannenbaumaktion-bissendorf.de, and the backoffice the team uses to run a season. While a season is open, a household registers a pickup address. The organizers then see who signed up, which streets to drive, and how the donations add up.

The KAB Bissendorf had run the collection for more than thirty years before the parish youth took it over, together with a large circle of households who already expected a pickup. The route depends on people signing up. Registration usually runs from November to December, with one pickup date in January.

I help organize the collection with other members of the community. We needed a form a household can finish on a phone, a switch that opens and closes registration with the season, and a private list of addresses, donation marks, and an export for the Saturday drive.

The site is live at tannenbaumaktion-bissendorf.de. Households in Bissendorf can see the next pickup and, while the season is open, register a tree at the curb. The parish youth runs the list from the backoffice.

Building it for my community, as one of the people who organize the collection, meant taking the details from the Saturday itself: the street, the envelope on the tree, and a form that is only open when the pickup is actually happening.