theCoderSchool Montgomery Students Win Congressional App Challenge

By Jaysna Tuladhar for The Montgomery News | Posted April 15, 2026

Four high schoolers who attend theCoderSchool in Montgomery have won the 2025 Congressional App Challenge for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District with their app PantryLink, which connects food pantries, volunteers, and families in need.

The PantryLink team, Joshua Sambol, Naisha Singh, Nupur Bhavsar, and Michael Youtz, began developing the idea in May 2025 for the Congressional App Challenge at theCoderSchool. Working together over several months, the team created a system aimed at improving communication and coordination between local food pantries and the communities they serve.

TheCoderSchool Montgomery owners Dominique Young and Michael Young and the PantryLink team meet with Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman. (Left to Right - Dominique Young, Michael Youtz, Naisha Singh, Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, Joshua Sambol, Nupur Bhavsar, and Michael Young.)

PantryLink operates through two connected platforms: a Web app for food pantries and a mobile app for volunteers and clients. Pantry staff can use the website to update inventory, post messages, and manage volunteer schedules, while users of the mobile app can view available food supplies, receive updates and sign up for volunteer shifts.

The system is designed so that updates made by volunteers and pantry managers quickly synchronize across both platforms, helping streamline communication.

Before their work on Pantry- Link, the four students did not know each other. Youtz and Singh attend Montgomery High School. Bhavsar goes to Hillsborough High School, and Sambol is a student at The Pennington School. The app was developed with support from theCoderSchool, which annually partners with the Congressional App Challenge to help teens build apps with real-world impact. The school teaches students not only how to code, but also gives them guidance on outreach and communication.

Despite starting as a project for the challenge, the app has quickly become something much more ambitious and impactful, especially with its publication to the Apple App Store making it available for public use.

The team says the biggest challenge now is expanding the platform’s reach. Currently, PantryLink has one partner pantry, and the team hopes to bring more organizations on board. The team has plans to continue improving the platform to solidify its impact within the community. “As we get more pantries, they will have unique requests for how it could benefit them,” said Sambol, “based on what they say we want to update the app.”

Many food pantries use existing inventory systems, which can make organizations hesitant to adopt a new platform, so the team is hopeful about potentially integrating PantryLink with one of these systems to make the transition easier. The team believes that the unique client- and volunteer-facing aspect of PantryLink makes it an important tool that could help countless people receive the support they need.

Advertisement

The team says that the app has helped them as well. Beyond the technical experience of creating the app, the team says the experience has taught them valuable skills outside of coding. Bhavsar said meeting with food pantries was the first time she had to advocate for something that she had created, and that doing so has helped her develop her public speaking and marketing skills.

Though the challenge has ended, the team is excited about PantryLink’s future. Singh said that winning the challenge was a great motivational boost, but even if they hadn’t won the challenge, they would have continued to develop PantryLink because they believe in the positive impact it will have on the Montgomery community and beyond.