Stories & Inspiration
Read below to see all the amazing ways the Mozilla community shared, gave, engaged, created, and collaborated during the week of September 14-21, 2009, by using the Internet to make a difference in people's lives.
People from all over came together to make a difference in their local community, and helped fellow public benefit organizations gain from the open Web. Thank you for taking part in Mozilla Service Week. Thank you for joining the cause - you made a difference.
Los Angeles LAUSD Parent Center Mozilla Orientation
It has come to my attention that many of our parent centers in the LAUSD do not have or make available computers for the parents while they are on campus. Working with The Surf Station, a local browser based kiosk system made from re-used pcs Caltek.net under the direction Kenneth Wyrick will provide one or more surf stations to no less than 5 parent centers and as many as 10 by the end of the service week.
We also plan to work with http://surveyla.org to work on locations in the West Adams - Baldwin Hills - Leimert Community Plan see map: http://cityplanning.lacity.org/complan/central/pdf/genlumap.wad.pdf Related Link
Web Savvy Techie Needed
Border Action Network formed in 1999 and works with immigrant and border communities in southern Arizona to ensure that our rights are respected, our human dignity upheld and that our communities are healthy places to live. We are a membership-based organization that combines grassroots community organizing, leadership development, litigation and policy advocacy. The office is located in Tucson, Arizona.
We are looking for volunteers to help out with the following:
* Help us with network troubleshooting & computer maintenance
* Update the organization's website using Joomla, HTML and Photoshop (or other image manipulation software)
* Prepare e-newsletter using an existing template (experience with DIA/Salsa helpful but not required)
* Data entry & reporting (experience with Salesforce helpful but not required)
Thank you for considering volunteering your talents to Border Action Network!
Related Link
Community Corridor Planning
Somerville Community Corporation (SCC) is in need of a skilled web designer to prepare a content management system (CMS) for an online mapping tool. As part of our efforts to facilitate a community based planning process around the pending arrival of the Green Line in Somerville neighborhoods, SCC is creating an online mapping tool that utilizes Google Maps to identify community assets and articulate community visions for the areas around each new station. Given the degree of change that will transpire with the arrival of this new line of public transportation, SCC is committed to working with community members, particularly low income families and immigrant residents who ordinarily don’t have a voice, to influence the kinds of changes that will take place. While many of the impending changes will benefit the community, if unchecked, market changes could lead to the displacement of a sector of the population unable to keep up with increasing costs associated with the arrival of the Green Line. SCC is excited to introduce this innovative mapping tool to give people an accessible, unique, and interactive means of understanding and directly influencing community planning decisions.
The CMS will need to support photos, video, and blogging generated by users of the tool. Our intended use of this tool would require that user generated content could be uploaded in real time without administrative discretion but could be altered at a later time for quality control.
Related Link
Living at Home - livinghome.org
I first learned of Living at Home from my mother's many volunteer efforts with the program. The organization enables seniors to remain living in the home of their choice. They link seniors up with programs and services that already exist to serve them, they build wheelchair ramps, deliver Meals-On-Wheels, provide medical transportation, respite care and much more.
Living at Home clearly improves the lives of the people they serve. They have need for financial support and are always looking for volunteers. I have committed myself to spend time during the Mozilla Service Week helping to tell the story of Living at Home by improving their website. The more people know about this wonderful organization, the more they will be eager to volunteer hours or contribute financially to keep the organization strong. Related Link
Arts Ed Non-profit Needs Blog to Spread the Word
Urban Gateways is a non-profit that provides arts education to children who would otherwise not have access to the arts. One of our programs trains and places teaching artists in classrooms, where they collaborate with the teacher to build art into the curriculum. We would like to start a blog featuring 5 or 6 of our teaching artists, in order to provide an inside look at the work they do and the impact they have. The blog would need to allow multiple people to post - and to archive posts by date and by author.
Related Link
One Nurse At A Time
We are a non profit organization created by nurses who are passionate about giving back to our local and global community through volunteer and humanitarian medical pursuits. We are dedicated to assisting other nurses enhance our profession as they too, look for opportunities to serve locally, nationally and internationally.
Our website is an on line resource center for nurses to learn more about volunteer opportunities and to receive support. Our primary goal is to lower the entry barriers for nurses that want to volunteer their time and skills. We are doing this in a variety of ways. We have created a free directory of 250+ organizations that use volunteer nurses, both locally and internationally. We also have a scholarship program where we have been able to provide funds for a volunteer nurse to travel on a trip.
Our technical need is with our directory/database. We need a complete overhaul of the database so it's easier to update (behind the scenes) and faster to load (what the user sees). We would also like an interface between a normal Excel spreadsheet and the website database that actually works so it's not inputting each and every new entry. We are open to purchasing new software if necessary and if it fits within our budget.
We believe that nurses posses important skills and knowledge and are invaluable volunteers locally and abroad. Please help us help those who want to make a difference and change the world One Nurse At A Time! Related Link
Train Us so We Can Give More Youth Futures in Biotechnology
We are small organization of 6 staff that has helped over 900 low-income and disadvantaged youth discover science and find opportunities for a future in Biotechnology. In comparison to the state high school graduation rate (as low as 30% for some populations)100% of our students graduate from high school. Most of our graduates pursue a 4 year college degree, many in science. Others choose to continue in our community college and internship program and be later be placed in full-time science-based jobs with wages between $35k-$45k. Our award-winning program has become a model for connecting education to careers, changing the lives of families and building an educated and trained workforce in the growing and competitive biotech industry.
But, we could be reaching more youth and developing a wider network of opportunities with the industry. A technology review/training will help us understand how we can be more efficient in our communication with students/industry, attracting funding and in recruiting more industry partners. Related Link
Girl Scouts Seek Web Design Assistance
Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place. The Girl Scout Council of the Nation's Capitol, as an organization with a membership of over 80,000, greatly relies on volunteers to help get things done, including volunteer recruitment.
In order to make this job easier, we are hoping to create a Craigslist type of webpage where volunteers can post help wanted and available ads and use forums to share ideas across the council.
This will help troop leaders run more exciting meetings, volunteer managers find members for their team, and give those who are new to Girl Scouting a chance to get their feet wet with short term opportunities.
Join us for Mozilla Service Week! If you have experience in web design and would like to help us in this endeavor, please contact Allison Nederveld at ***@***.***.
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Helping People Triumph
Recovery Resources is a behavioral health organization helping people triumph over mental illness, alcoholism, drug and other addictions. Our goal through Mozilla's project is to expand our client/payer base, funding base, and reach more of those that are commited to our mission by updating and/or renovating our existing website. Specifically we are interested in being paired with a Web Designer with Java Script, CSS abilities, or content development expertise.
We envision increasing access for clients via:
Blog
Appts on line
Q & A
Ask the nurse/Dr.
Updated Links to other resources
And for funders, through:
Donate on line
Wish list on line
Volunteer Opportunities
Status reports
Quality measures
We believe a website should solve problems and entertain. We would also like to drive traffic of clients and non clients to our site. We ask for support to enhance the site we already have to more readily resemble what we envision our website could and should do for our stakeholders.
Related Link
Political Tech Non-Profit Seeks Talent
CIVX is looking for great minds to work on a political framework that visualizes, organizes, and makes public information accessible.
We're built on an 100% Open Source Python framework, bringing best of breed technologies to public information. We're currently seeking grants and other opportunities to build a flexible and open platform.
Please contact us if you're a python hacker looking to get your hands dirty; a designer in love with CSS frameworks like Blueprint; or a Firefox lover looking to spread the word.
Contact us: ***@***.***
Mailing list: https://fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/civx
Related Link