versus
Help Me vs an iMessage group
The blue bubbles are your people. When they are in class, asleep, or in another city, a silent group is not a helper network.
What an iMessage group is
It is the hallmates, the cousins, the high-school people who still tap in. On iPhone it is the default. It is intimate and it is fragile: mute, leave, forget. Asking for help there is honest when those people can actually come. It is awkward when they cannot, and it trains you to not ask.
What Help Me is
A way to ask without performing the need to the group chat. Approved helpers nearby, private offer, private chat after accept. You still have iMessage. You still should text the friend who would come if they could. Help Me is the other door when that friend is not the map.
When to use which
Text your people first if they are the right people. Use Help Me when you need a local, approved neighbor and you do not want to wait on read receipts. Use campus safety when the walk is about fear. Use 911 when it is danger. An iMessage group cannot escort you officially, and Help Me cannot be your family.
Questions people actually ask
Should I stop texting friends for jumper cables?
No. Friends are the original Help Me. The app is for when that thread is the wrong room or the wrong city.
Can I add a helper to my iMessage group?
You choose what you share. The product’s chat, report, and block tools live in the request. Meet in public either way.
Does Help Me use iMessage under the hood?
No. Chat is in the app, between you and the helper who accepted.
Keep going
versus
Help Me vs GroupMe
Campus GroupMe threads are how NDSU, MSUM, and Concordia orgs already talk. Help Me is for the ask you should not perform in a chat of two hundred.
versus
Help Me vs WhatsApp
WhatsApp is messaging you already have. Help Me is not a messenger. It opens a private chat only after an approved helper accepts a local request.
who it's for
For students in Fargo–Moorhead
For NDSU, MSUM, Concordia, and M State students: everyday campus help, official events, and a way to ask without posting to a group chat.
product
How Help Me works
Ask in a sentence. Approved helpers nearby see it. One accepts. You chat privately and meet in public. Four steps — that is the entire ask.
glossary
A help request
A Help Me request is a short, private ask from the live map. Eligible approved helpers may get an offer. There is no public feed of your need.
who it's for
New in town, on purpose
Moving to Fargo, Moorhead, or West Fargo? How Help Me fits a first winter, a first campus week, and a city you do not know yet.
Help Me is a community app for adults in Fargo–Moorhead. It is not a K–12 student program, not a youth chat, and not campus police.