adiuto has already proved itself
Whether adiuto works is not an open question. The platform was used under extraordinary conditions in Berlin in 2022. The records from that operation show that its core model works at scale.
What problem does adiuto solve?
When many people want to help at the same time, an initiative has to answer four questions continuously: What is needed right now? In what quantity? Where should it arrive? Has somebody already committed to it—and did it actually arrive?
Chats and static lists cannot answer those questions reliably at scale. Important requests are buried, old information keeps circulating, several people may bring the same thing, and limited storage fills with goods that are no longer needed.
adiuto gives the people doing the work one current plan. An initiative publishes a need with a quantity and location. A supporter makes a binding commitment through a mission. The handover confirms what arrived and updates the remaining demand. Everyone works from the same state without taking control away from the team on site.
Berlin 2022: proof under real pressure
At the beginning of March 2022, volunteers in Berlin were receiving trains and buses carrying hundreds of people fleeing the war in Ukraine. The main Berlin Arrival Support group had grown to roughly 2,300 participants. It carried requests for food, beds, lifts, interpreters, and donations all at once. Urgent posts disappeared in the conversation.
This was the point at which adiuto proved its value. It gave every reception point a current list of what was still needed, let donors make a binding commitment, and recorded the handover when the goods arrived. The system was used with Berlin Arrival Support and Spendenbrücke Ukraine.
Dates, quotations, and interim figures in this section come from contemporaneous Berlin Arrival Support group archives and the legacy adiuto records. Names and contact details have been removed. Passenger and group sizes are estimates reported at the time; platform figures are the totals published by adiuto.
One current list instead of thousands of chat messages
From 3 March, coordinators directed donors to adiuto. Each station team maintained the needs it could actually accept. If something was not listed, it should not be brought at that moment.
The handover had a simple loop:
- A station published an item and the quantity still needed.
- A donor added some of that quantity to a mission and received a QR code.
- A volunteer scanned the code when the donation arrived, confirming the handover and updating the remaining demand.
Why it worked at the stations
An exchange from 8 March explains the problem better than a feature description could:
Wouldn’t a central warehouse for the stations make sense—at least for things like water or fruit, with larger deliveries sent out as needed?
It is about storage. There isn’t much space at ZOB, and people arrive in waves. Food might sit untouched for a short while, then a lot is handed out at once. That’s why the official system is useful before bringing something.
Used across Berlin
Separate lists went into live use for Hauptbahnhof, ZOB, and Südkreuz. The network later included Ostbahnhof, LAF/AKUZ, Tempelhof, Potsdam, and other locations. Donation notices became bilingual. Supplies collected at Tempelhof could be routed to Hauptbahnhof, and a person-to-person list served people who had already found accommodation but still lacked individual essentials.
The operation changed constantly, but the pattern held: the people at each location owned their needs; donors saw the same current quantities; checkout turned an intention into a commitment; and the QR handover showed what had actually arrived.
Proven at scale
Volunteers used those lists to coordinate food and essential supplies for thousands of people arriving in Berlin. One dispatch update alone recorded 3,000 bars of soap, 550 dental kits, 500 shower gels, 300 bottles of shampoo, 200 bottles of body lotion, and 400 cups, alongside toothbrushes, conditioner, and shaving kits, ready for delivery at Berlin Central Station.
The documented result
On 29 April, the group shared a simple results card for the work since the end of February: 276,859 donated items, 26,823 completed missions, and 2,724 regular volunteers. These figures were published while the response was still under way; the later legacy totals appear below.
By the time the legacy platform was retired, it had recorded the following totals:
Figures from the legacy platform records. Registered accounts are not the same as regularly active users.
Who made it work
These figures do not mean that adiuto fed anyone. Volunteers on the ground prepared food, staffed night shifts, translated, sorted goods, and made the handovers. Donors paid, packed, drove, and delivered. They fed and supported thousands of people. The merit is theirs.
adiuto kept the changing needs, commitments, and completed handovers in one current system. That helped prevent duplicate or unwanted deliveries and directed the available help where it was needed. This was the platform’s role: coordinating the work of the people who made the aid possible.
The 2022 operation is the proof. adiuto was not merely a proposal or prototype; it worked under real conditions and at high volume. The new implementation builds on that tested principle.