CARE Project - Cyprus Animals Rescue Effort
A 100% volunteer-run dog rescue platform helping stray and shelter-bound dogs across Cyprus find loving homes.
careproject.cy | UANA Foundation
About
CARE Project is the adoption platform for UANA Foundation, a registered nonprofit in Cyprus. We rescue stray dogs, cover their veterinary care, rehabilitate and socialize them, and coordinate adoptions locally and internationally to the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands.
100% volunteer. No paid staff. Every euro goes to the animals.
Why Open Source
Every rescue organization deserves a modern adoption platform. Most operate through social media DMs and spreadsheets. We built this site for CARE Project and are open-sourcing it so any animal rescue can fork it, add their animals, and deploy for free.
Tech Stack
Features
- Dog profile pages with photos, breed, age, and adoption status
- Adoption listings filtered by availability
- Success stories gallery
- Markdown-powered blog with Cyprus-specific pet care content
- Static pages (About, Adopt, Foster, Donate, Get Involved)
- SEO-optimized with sitemap generation
- Social sharing (Open Graph, Twitter cards)
- Responsive design
- Ahrefs analytics integration
Getting Started
Prerequisites
Installation
git clone https://github.com/careproject-cy/platform.git
cd platform
npm install
Configuration
Copy .env.example to .env and fill in a Postgres connection string and a Payload secret. Without
S3_BUCKET set, image uploads fall back to local disk, which is fine for development.
cp .env.example .env
npm run migrate
Running your own instance needs a Postgres database (Neon's free tier is enough) and, for uploaded
images, an S3 bucket. Set S3_PUBLIC_BASE_URL to the public URL your images are served from (e.g. a
CloudFront or bucket URL) and next/image will allow that host automatically. DATABASE_URL is
required at build time, not just at runtime, because pages are prerendered.
Development
npm run dev
Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser. The admin panel is at
/admin - the first visit prompts you to create an admin account.
Content
Dog profiles and blog posts are managed in the CMS at /admin and publish without a deploy. Their body
text is Markdown, rendered through Markdoc. Static pages remain Markdown files in data/pages/.
The legacy Markdown in data/dogs/ and data/blog/ is kept as the migration source; import it once with:
npm run import-content
Deploying
Builds do not run database migrations. Schema changes are applied deliberately, so that a preview
build of an unmerged branch can never alter the production database and a rolled-back deploy never
leaves an un-rolled-back schema behind.
When a change adds or alters a collection field:
npm run migrate:create <name> # generate the migration, commit it
npm run migrate # apply it locally
Then, before merging to main, apply it to production with DATABASE_URL pointing at the production
database, and confirm with npm run migrate:status that every migration reads Ran: Yes. Deploy after
that, never before - the new code expects the new schema.
Migrations read .env (not .env.local), because that is what the Payload CLI loads.
Backups
.github/workflows/db-backup.yml runs pg_dump daily (03:00 UTC) and uploads a gzipped dump to S3,
keeping 30 days. A dump contains password hashes and all content, so it must not go in the media
bucket - that bucket is served publicly through CloudFront. Use a separate private bucket:
- Create an S3 bucket with Block Public Access on and no CloudFront distribution.
- Create an IAM user scoped to
s3:PutObject, s3:GetObject, s3:DeleteObject, s3:ListBucket on
that bucket only.
- Add these GitHub repository secrets (Settings -> Secrets and variables -> Actions):
BACKUP_DATABASE_URL (Neon's unpooled connection string), BACKUP_S3_BUCKET, BACKUP_S3_REGION,
BACKUP_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID, BACKUP_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY.
Run it on demand from the Actions tab ("Run workflow"). Restore with
gunzip -c dump.sql.gz | psql "$DATABASE_URL" against a fresh database.
Build
npm run build
Project Structure
platform/
app/
(frontend)/ # The public website
blog/ # Blog pages
dogs/ # Dog profile pages
more/ # Static pages (adopt, foster, donate, etc.)
(payload)/ # CMS admin panel and REST API
components/ # React components (header, footer, dog cards, etc.)
data/ # Constants and data fetching utilities
collections/ # Payload collections (dogs, posts, media, users)
payload.config.ts # CMS configuration
data/
dogs/ # Legacy dog Markdown, kept as the migration source
blog/ # Legacy blog Markdown, kept as the migration source
pages/ # Static page content as Markdown
public/ # Static assets (logos, images)
lib/ # Content import and generation scripts
UANA Foundation
CARE Project operates under UANA Foundation, a registered Cyprus nonprofit (HE 442538) that supports animal rescuers across the island. UANA also runs:
- Shelter Support: Financial aid to municipal pounds and private rescue centers
- Emergency Foster Program: Temporary pet care for owners facing illness, unemployment, or domestic violence
- Volunteer Coordination: Organizing shelter visits, dog walks, and care activities
Contact: [email protected]
Contributing
We welcome contributions! Whether you're a developer, designer, or animal welfare advocate:
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch (
git checkout -b feature/your-feature)
- Make your changes
- Run linting and type checks (
npm run lint && npm run typecheck)
- Commit your changes
- Push to the branch (
git push origin feature/your-feature)
- Open a Pull Request
Social
License
MIT
