Serve 2.0 Resources Wiki

 

Concord University Sub-Grantee Profile

Page history last edited by Jesse Call 3 mos ago

 

Campus Name

Concord University 

Athens, WV (see Serve 2.0 Mini-Grant Map)

 

Campus Contacts

Courtney Hoover / hooverc11@concord.edu/ 304-384-6009

Trent Estep / estept05@concord.edu / 304-384-6009

Jesse Call / callj22@concord.edu / 304-384-6009

Kathy Ball / bonner@concord.edu / 304-384-6009

PO Box 1000, Campus Box D-131, Athens, WV 24712

URL:  http://bonner.concord.edu

 

 

Issue Focus Area(s)

Homelessness 

 

Brief Overview

Concord University will focus on the issue of homelessness in their surrounding area, rural West Virginia.  They will work with a number of local non-profit partners.  Their hope is to engage students in developing videos that show the story of the challenges that homeless people are facing and then utilize those videos to raise student, campus, and community awareness, education, and levels of volunteerism. Their hope is to use social media such as Facebook, YouTube, and blogs to engage students and other volunteers who are actively working to assist the homeless or counter the effects of poverty.  They also hope to build the capacity of the agencies to utilize these tools. 

 

Key Community Partners

 

(see Serve 2.0 Mini-Grant Map)

If sites are missing from the map, please email Ariane Hoy (ahoy@bonner.org).

 

Social Media Tools to Be Used

Facebook, videos, YouTube, blogs, Wikis

 

Context and Rationale (Explanation of Tools)

Everyone involved in community service or in any other aspect of the non-profit sectors of the world has received a newsletter or update letter from an agency looking for a donation.  The newsletter of the twenty-first century is the blog.  Blogging is a way for a person, agency, or organization to put out a story on a regular basis and it is better than old fashioned postal mail because it is easy for people how are uninterested to unsubscribe and the blogger saves postage.  Blogging is also a great way for people to share their opinions and ideas surrounding a common event.  Blogs allow people from all over the world to “sit together and speak their minds” in a purely electronic and virtual sense.

 

The news is full of stories about how people these days have developed a decreased sensitivity to the world around them because of all the television they watch and the video games they play.  Instead of fighting this trend we are going to play to it by using videos to reach out to those in our community.  Videos can be posted on YouTube, posted on Facebook, embedded into an organization’s blog, or sent out in a traditional email.  No matter how you use a video though, it engages the person receiving it on the visual and audio levels which studies have shown increases the rate of learning and retention of information.  Keeping an audience member’s attention through the use of a video instead of using solely a written or audio format allows our organizations the chance to increase the scope, quality, and depth of service they receive from volunteers because the volunteers will have an increased knowledge of the issues they are serving in.

 

Facebook is a social utility that connects over 150 million users utilizing 39 languages from around the world.  With a free profile on Facebook, a user can upload photos and videos, share interesting websites, send out ads pertaining to their work, start a social group around a common commitment, and maintain contact with people who share any of a number of common features with the user.  Facebook groups are a great way to connect people who have a common belief or commitment.  Using a Facebook group, these people can share videos, photos, websites, and ideas with everyone else who is a member of the group. 

 

Link to Campus Organizing Strategies

Concord will also link their initiatives with other work underway through the Bonner Scholar Program and broader Center for service.  They will link efforts with Bonner and other service efforts addressing homelessness, also learning from the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington D.C., whom they visit during the Bonner First Year Trip, local Box City publicity event, alternative spring break tip, and Urban Plunge.  

 

Goals of Initiative

 

  • We will increase the general population’s knowledge concerning the problems surrounding the homelessness issue.
  • We will create a Facebook group that covers problems associated with the issue of homelessness.
  • We will post video interviews of people who are currently or have previously been affected by homelessness on our Facebook group on our YouTube page. These people will come from the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) Faces of Homelessness panel as well as from trips to homeless shelters in the area.
  • We will send out a live-stream over the internet covering our box city event.
  • We will give people the information they need to work towards a change concerning the issue of homelessness.
  • We will publicize our homelessness Facebook group using our volunteer website and people’s individual Facebook accounts.
  • We will use our volunteer website to publicize local non-profit organizations’ needs to the general community.
  • Students from Concord University will share their new knowledge surrounding the issues of homelessness using social media tools and technologies.
  • Students who attend any number of our functions will add video diary logs to our homelessness Facebook Group and our YouTube page.
  • Students will be encouraged to blog reflections of their service on a thread of the Facebook group.
  • We will increase number of community agencies’ (specifically those focused on homelessness or issues of homelessness) who use social media tools and technologies as they work to publicize their services as well as their needs.
  • We will provide social media tools and technology training as necessary to those agencies we work with.
  • We will encourage the agencies we work with to create their own Facebook pages.
  • We will encourage the agencies we work with to post videos on YouTube and Facebook to further their causes.
  • We will increase the number of community members and volunteers who use social media tools and technologies when they seek information concerning homelessness issues and organizations that work on these issues.
  • We will provide a volunteer website geared to place volunteers at non-profit agencies that use volunteers.
  • We will publicize our website to potential volunteers and potential partner organizations.   

 

 

Key Activities and Timelines

Spring 2009

  • In the spring of 2009 we will implement a number of service based trips and events that will focus on homelessness.  These events will include a NCH Faces of Homelessness panel, Box City publicity event, alternative spring break trip focused on an aspect of homelessness, and a Homelessness challenge (AKA: Urban Plunge).  We will be video recording parts of all of these events to be posted on online media outlets later.

 

Summer 2009

  • We will take the Bonner freshman service trip to Washington DC.  We will make video logs of this trip.  During the summer of 2009 is when we will create and make public the Facebook group for homelessness and we will work with our local partners to create their blogs, Facebook groups, and whatever else they decide to implement.  Our volunteer website will be up and fully functional.

 

Fall 2009

  • We will be working on a PolicyOptions.org brief based on the work done on homelessness in the spring of 2009, and incorporating the Social Work 404 class (Advanced Community-Based Research).  We will finish the publishing of the videos taken from all the events in spring/summer 2009 and they will be put online.  We will increase the networking between community agencies and students/community members active in the area of homelessness using social media tools and technologies.

 

Spring 2010

  • We will set up a number of trips/events centered on homelessness for students to attend.  We will participate in: a Faces of Homelessness panel, an alternative break trip, and a Homelessness Challenge (Urban Plunge).  We will take video logs and documentary type videos of these events. We will follow up the summer 2009 Bonner freshman trip with a sophomore exchange trip that is centered on homelessness.

 

Summer 2010

  • We will take a new class of Bonner freshman on a service trip to Washington DC.  We will have fresh minds to make new videos of this trip. 

 

Fall 2010

  • We will complete the editing and publishing of the videos taken in the fall 2009 and spring/summer 2010.  We will finish our work on the PolicyOptions.org brief on homelessness using a new Social Work 404 CBR class.  We will complete the updating of the social networking and social media tools and technologies used throughout the project.

 

Spring 2010

  • We will culminate our project by having a student presentation (artist lecture series style) on what they have learned/experienced concerning the issue of homelessness.  They will present the new social media tools and technologies they have created as well as those they have discovered.  The student presentation will be augmented with community agency presentations presenting their new tools, strategies and technologies. 

 

 

 

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