Profiles

I sail (race) competitively. But all-things maritime related are my passions

As the pandemic started, a friend and colleague, Ken Carbone, who owns Dolphin Graphics https://dolphingraphics.com/, said he had a potential new client that wanted to expand their website to include accepting SNAP EBT (food stamps) payments online and asked if I knew anything about EBT. I said, funny you should ask because I just was in contact with a payments company called Cardknox and they are able to process SNAP EBT payments. So, we put forth a proposal to Mandela Co-Op and won the account. Dolphin Graphics begin a WordPress / WC developed made the website on the platform which you can see the finished product here https://shopmandela.com/. However, after we signed the deal with Mandela the USDA/FNS sent us a 130-page requirements document on what the website needed to do in order to be approved to accept EBTs online. Luckily, WP/WC is open source. Thus, we were able to build a plugin which is part theme and part payment gateway that food retailers can add to their site and make the website 90% compatible with the USDA/FNS requirement to accept EBT online, which allows smaller food retailers to compete with the likes of Walmart, Instacart, Amazon, etc