Picture this

Who it is for

A parent group in Accra funds lunches for forty pupils. Lunch Money issues a token each child can spend only at the three approved canteens. Donors see every meal bought and nothing leaks to other shops.

Two ways to own it

What you get

Base$179

$45 deposit to reserve

Token-2022 mint with hook, merchant allowlist admin, donor dashboard, canteen scan page.

You choose: accent color
You choose: merchant list
You choose: weekly cap

Customfrom $1,400

Built around you

Reshape it entirely: new features, your flows, your brand end to end, integrations you need. We scope it with you.

Everything in Base
Custom features and design
Priority build

Why it is new

What exists today, and what this does differently

What is new

Transfer hook docs show allowlists in general; no school meal or merchant restricted aid token was found live.

Closest things out there

Solana transfer hook examples (KYC allowlists); off chain meal cards.

Checked with web searches in October 2026. A search is not proof that nothing similar exists, and the market moves fast, so we recheck before every build.

What it unlocks

The human in it

Help that arrives as meals, not leakage.

The Regatta Board

Races it can enter

grant · Solana Foundation · rolling

Solana Foundation Grants

rolling

Official page ↗

Ecosystem program for shipped apps; check current terms.

Their rule on existing code: Existing projects OK

What you own

The whole app, not a starter kit.

The complete Lunch Money app: a parent group funds a meal token that pupils can spend only at approved canteens, with pupil cards, canteen scanning, donor notes, plans and checkout built in.

Base price · $179

The user app, complete

Every buyer gets the same finished app. Basic branding and copy changes come through a quick form.

Three step onboardingHome

Shown once: money that only buys lunch, only at approved canteens, donors see every meal.

Week status and next actionHome

Meals this week, refused spends, today's canteen counts and one clear next step.

Pupil list with limitsPupils

Daily and weekly meal dots per pupil, search, and add a pupil.

Printable QR meal cardsPupils

Each card is a school controlled wallet; names stay in the treasurer's private list.

Canteen allowlist mapCanteens

Hand drawn map of approved canteens and the weekly cap.

Live lunch lineCanteens

Scan a meal, try a kiosk, try passing to a friend; the transfer hook refuses what is not allowed.

Committee signing to add a canteenCanteens

2 of 3 signatures to add Kofi's Fruit Cart. A fourth canteen and signing are gated behind the School plan.

Friday note and share cardDonors

Meals bought, refused spends, top dish; send to donors or share.

Named donor dashboardDonors

Live page with the group's name and meals per week. Gated behind the School plan.

Group pot and weekly fundingWallet

Mint the week's meal tokens from the pot, sized by pupils, cap and price.

Receipts and canteen payoutsWallet

What is on chain, what never is, and Friday payouts per canteen.

Plans and checkoutWallet

Pricing from the owner paywall, paid through the USDC checkout with a receipt.

Open the full app demo

Add-on

Owner console

Your admin side: revenue, paywall editor, users, rules and the agent log.

Revenue and paywall editorRevenue

Recurring revenue, redemption fees, USDC payments, payment methods, live tier and gate editing.

RulesRules

Daily limit, weekly cap, meal price, signatures for list changes, redemption fee.

Agent log and roadmapAgent

What the helper fixed, running costs, and priced v2 and v3 builds.

Top-up

Growth and referrals

Referral and growth mechanics, switched on when you are ready to grow.

Growth loopsGrowth

Canteen days, Friday note forwarding, parent group invites and school referrals.

The money path, built in

How it earns for you

One class runs free. Schools pay a small monthly plan for more pupils, more canteens and committee signing; charity networks pay for many schools. An optional small fee on canteen redemptions.

ClassFreeUp to 40 pupils and 3 canteens, weekly Friday note, public meal count

School$20 a month (about GHS 250)Up to 400 pupils, unlimited canteens, 2 of 3 signing, donor dashboard with your name

Network$180 a monthMany schools, shared canteen onboarding, consolidated reports, payout support

Optional redemption fee the owner sets (0 to 3 percent) on weekly canteen payouts. Solana fees are a few dollars a month.

Prices are yours to set. Illustrative, not a promise of income.

Growth loops, built in

How it spreads

Friday notes that end with how many meals a donor's money bought, forwarded to the next donor
Canteen days where an approved canteen brings owners from nearby schools
Each new school adds a parent group that already raises money
School to school referrals worth a free month of the paid plan

Roadmap · build the next phase with us

Where it goes next

v1 included

The full school app

Token-2022 meal token with an allowlist hook
Daily and weekly limits per pupil
Canteen scan page and printable QR cards
Friday note, receipts and plans

Included

Mobile money bridge

Donors give by mobile money or card
Canteens cash out to mobile money weekly
SMS balance check for parents
Twi and Ga interface

Add-on from $500

Nutrition and district network

Menu tags so donors fund protein and fruit days
District dashboard across schools
Canteen quality ratings by teachers
Grant report export

Add-on from $1,100

For investors and grant reviewers

The pitch, ready

A school meal token that only spends at approved canteens, so help arrives as meals, not leakage.

Problem: Parent groups and donors fund school lunches, but cash and transfers leak to airtime, sweets and other shops, and donors cannot see what their money bought.

Solution: A Token-2022 meal token with a transfer hook that only allows approved canteen accounts and per pupil daily limits. Pupils tap a card, canteens scan, donors get a Friday note.

Why now: Token-2022 transfer hooks make spending rules enforceable at the transfer itself, and Solana fees make a meal sized payment practical.

Market: Parent groups, school feeding charities, churches and NGOs funding meals in West Africa and beyond.

The ask: Pilot with three schools in Accra and one feeding charity, plus ecosystem grant support.

Funding is never guaranteed. Check each program's rules.

For hackathons and demo days

Your 2 minute demo

Home: meet Esi, treasurer of a parent group in Osu funding lunch for forty pupils.
Wallet: fund the week and mint the meal tokens from the group pot.
Pupils: open Kwesi's meal card and show the daily and weekly limits.
Canteens: scan Kwesi at Auntie Efua's, then watch a kiosk transfer get refused.
Canteens: Kofi's Fruit Cart asks to join; unlock the School plan and collect committee signatures.
Donors: send the Friday note and the share card.
Owner Revenue: change the School price in the paywall editor and preview the Plans sheet.
Owner Growth and Roadmap: run a canteen day, then request the mobile money bridge.

Many hackathons require code written at the event. See the Regatta Boardfor each race's rule.

Make it entirely yours

Custom work from $1,400: your own spending rules, a charity branded deployment, integration with a mobile money provider or school system, extra languages. Scoped on a call.

Custom from $1,400

BLUEPRINT

Why it matters and how it really works

The need

Parent groups, churches and small charities fund school lunches with cash or mobile money, and a share of it ends up on airtime, sweets or someone else's errand. Donors cannot see how many meals their money bought, so giving slows down.

What exists and what is new

The mechanism exists: Solana's Token-2022 transfer hook extension and its published examples show allowlist checks on every transfer, and off chain meal cards and school canteen top up systems exist. What is new here is the packaging: a meal token for a named group of pupils that can only move to approved canteen accounts, multi signature changes to the canteen list, and a donor view of meals bought. Research found no live school meal or merchant restricted aid token of this kind, but the building blocks are standard, so the novelty is in the use, not the technology.

The data it runs on

The canteen list (canteen account addresses), weekly mint and cap settings, transfer signatures and slots, and refusal counts. Pupil names, class lists, card mappings and donor identities stay in the school's own records, never onchain.

1.The mission

Every coin given for a child's lunch arrives as a lunch, and the people who gave can see it did.

2.Why people can't resist it

The Friday note Each Friday donors get one line: how many meals their money bought, the top dish, and that nothing was spent outside the list.

Proof without exposure Every meal is a public transfer to a canteen, but no child's name is ever onchain. Donors trust it without anyone being watched.

Canteens want in Approved sellers get steady weekly sales and a cedi payout, so new sellers ask to join, which is a reason for the group to keep the list alive.

3.How it works for real

Meal token: A Token-2022 mint on Solana with the transfer hook extension. One token equals one meal at the group's set price. The group's treasury multisig is mint authority.

Transfer hook: A small Anchor program called on every transfer. It reads an allowlist account of approved canteen addresses and per pupil daily and weekly counters, and fails the transfer if the destination is not on the list or a limit is hit.

Pupil cards: Each pupil gets a custodial wallet behind a printed QR card. The canteen app scans the card and requests the transfer; the school's signer co-signs. Children never handle keys or phones.

Canteen accounts and payouts: Each canteen has one registered account. At week end the group redeems tokens from canteens for cedis through a mobile money or bank payout run by the treasurer, recorded as a burn.

List changes: Adding or removing a canteen needs 2 of 3 committee signatures through a Squads style multisig, so no single person can add a friend's shop.

Helper agent: A small model (for example a low cost tier such as Claude Haiku via an API) reads refusals and top ups, drafts the Friday note and proposes rule changes for the treasurer to approve. It cannot mint, move tokens or edit the list.

Donor dashboard: A public page built from an indexer (for example Helius webhooks) showing meals per canteen and refusals per week, with no pupil data.

4.Cost per use and pricing

Solana base fees are 5,000 lamports per signature, a fraction of a US cent per meal even with the extra compute of a transfer hook and an optional priority fee. 40 pupils at 5 meals a week is about 200 transfers, so under about 1 US dollar a week in network fees. Token account rent for 40 pupils and a few canteens is a one time cost of a few US dollars. The helper agent drafting one note and a few summaries a week costs cents on a small model tier. Monthly example for one school: well under 10 US dollars all in, before mobile money payout fees, which vary by provider.

Class Free

Up to 40 pupils and 3 canteens, weekly Friday note, public meal count.

School GHS 250 a month

Up to 400 pupils, unlimited canteens, multisig list changes, donor dashboard with custom name.

Network Custom

For charities running many schools: shared canteen onboarding, consolidated reports, and payout support.

5.Growth loop

Every Friday note is shareable and ends with how many meals a donor's money bought, which brings the next donor. Canteens that join tell other schools in their area, and each new school adds a parent group that already raises money.

6.Risks and guardrails

Child privacy: Pupil identities never go onchain. Cards map to random addresses inside school records only. Delete mappings at the end of each school year.

Canteen collusion: A canteen could hand out cash instead of food. Committee spot checks, per pupil daily limits and a clear removal process reduce it; no technology fully prevents it.

Payout and legal: Converting tokens to cedis touches mobile money and payments rules. Start with the treasurer paying canteens directly and take local advice before scaling.

Lost or shared cards: A lost card can be frozen and reissued by the school signer. The daily limit caps any loss at one meal.

Program bugs: A hook bug could block all lunches. Keep a tested fallback: the multisig can pause the hook and the group pays canteens by cash for that day.

7.Build order

Token-2022 mint with a transfer hook that checks a canteen allowlist
Daily and weekly per pupil counters in the hook
Canteen scan page and printable pupil QR cards
Treasurer admin with 2 of 3 multisig for list changes
Weekly redemption and payout record
Donor dashboard and Friday note

8.Where this is going

Now
One parent group, forty pupils, three canteens, and a Friday note donors look forward to.
Next
Whole schools and charities run their own meal tokens with shared canteen onboarding.
Later
The same pattern funds textbooks, uniforms and transport with their own approved sellers.
The world it changes
Aid that reaches the plate by design, so people give more because they can see it work.

Costs and tools are estimates at the time of writing. General information only, not legal or financial advice.

OWNER PLAYBOOK

Own it, then chart your voyage

Nine routes from one vessel. Tap a port to open its chart.

Why own Lunch Money

Lunch Money: A school meal token that only spends at approved canteens, enforced by a Token-2022 transfer hook. Using someone else's version means their rules, their brand and their revenue. Owning Lunch Money means it is deployed under your wallet, carries your name, and every customer, partner and result builds your track record instead of theirs.