Sincere Thanks to our Donors

To our community of donors and supporters:

On behalf of the entire Project C team here in Athens, Ohio, I would like to extend my biggest thanks for giving your financial support to Project C and the four organizations with whom we are working to feature in this years edition.

After spending time with Good Works last year, I found myself using a simple phrase often said by the people I met: I am grateful. Today, I am so very grateful and moved by the generosity of over 50 individuals, families, friends, and businesses from not just Athens, but a multitude of locations throughout the country.

You have shown us that you care deeply about the people involved in this project, the mission of Project C, and our ultimate goal of giving of our time, service, and financial support to four outstanding organizations that work each day, to make this world a little better.

As a founder of Project C, I could not be more proud of our team who is working extremely hard to connect with you, with our organizations, and with each other. This has been a learning experience every step of the way, and throughout the last year-and-a-half, the one thing that never seems to falter is the love and support of the people surrounding us: you.

With sincere and heartfelt thanks,

Annette Drapac | Co-Founder and Co-Director

HAPCAP: Connecting, Improving and Changing Lives

Last week, I spent the better part of both Thursday and Friday in Glouster, Ohio equipped with nothing more than a voice recorder, a notepad and my inquisitive mind.

I, along with the content producers for Project C’s Hocking-Athens-Perry Community Action program (HAPCAP) team, conducted interviews with six people — three on each day — in the just more than 24-hour time period. It proved to be one of the best 24-hour time periods I’ve had in quite a while.

HAPCAP is an all-encompassing nonprofit agency that aims to promote self-sufficiency and to improve the qualities of life of those struggling with poverty in Hocking, Athens and Perry counties, as well as in the surrounding areas. HAPCAP runs a multitude of programs that work to improve education, increase employment, improve housing, provide food and provide transportation in southeastern Ohio.

Doug Stanley, Executive Director of HAPCAP, talks about the many programs it provides.

Every time I go throughout Athens County to interview people working for and affected by local nonprofit organizations — which is actually quite frequently — I always return to OU with a fresh perspective on life. This time was no different.

Seeing how truly happy clients are directly because of HAPCAP programs, as well as how genuinely compassionate HAPCAP employees are, restored my faith in humanity in an area where overwhelming poverty statistics can be quite disheartening. Many of the clients experienced complete, 180-degree lifestyle changes for the better because of HAPCAP.

Bill Anderson, user of HAPCAP's Logan Public Transit program,
smiles during an interview.

There are people out there who devote each day to improving the lives of others, and they succeed in doing so more than they know. Every time I’m stressed out about this deadline, that exam or any other life event, I try to remember those people and the lives they are affecting. 

Nikina Fletcher is involved with HAPCAP's By-Car, Learn and Work,
PIPP Plus and Early Head Start programs.

Those people deal with stressful situations every single day and work to make them better, to turn bad into good. I always find that to be truly inspiring and motivating.

Just about an hour ago, I received word that we surpassed our $2,000 fundraising goal. I was so excited thinking about all of the money we’ll be able to give to local nonprofits that I yelled and told the first person I saw — no joke. I still can’t stop smiling.

Project C isn’t something we do for our résumés. It’s something we do because we care about Athens and the people in it. I am so glad I’ve been able to be a part of it for two years.

 - Lindsay Boyle | Writer

A Place of Warmth

It’s crunch time! My team members and I are embarking on our final stage of the storytelling process, editing. Our story is on The Gathering Place, which over the last month I have grown to love. The Gathering Place was a house that I walked past everyday last year on my way to class, never knowing how special it was.  It is a home-like atmosphere that supports the recovery of persons with mental illness by enhancing personal development and well-being, while fostering community involvement. There is a certain warmth about it, a warmth that could only be made possible by the people that build a sense of community there. My job as a videographer and editor is to try and capture some of that warmth and make audiences feel it as well.

 As a student practicing video for many years I have been in many uncomfortable and unpleasant filming situations. The Gathering Place however, is one of the most welcoming environments that I have ever filmed in, and that’s because of the people.  Part of my job as a videographer is to form a relationship with those whose story I’m telling, and the second part is to capture that story. The hardest part for me so far has been pressing record, because instead of filming I find myself engaged in conversation and interaction with people at the house. With the fast paced and stressful college environment I find myself in, it has been very refreshing to experience the people at the gathering place who seem very genuine and who are there because they enjoy being there and enjoy each other’s company.

Sometimes we can get so caught up in our own worlds and we forget that there are places out there that are run by people who spend their days not worrying about themselves but others. It’s eye opening. I appreciate everyone working at The Gathering Place who have allowed us to come in to film and have welcomed us as friends. The unsung heroes of this country are the ones that should be acknowledged and I hope that in our documentary we can acknowledge the people who are helping make The Gathering Place possible.  

- Andrew Thomas | Content Producer

           

UCM Lending a Hand Throughout the Area

Hey there, everyone, my name’s Ryan and I’m one of the content producers working behind the camera to make the multimedia pieces.  This year I’ve been assigned to cover United Campus Ministry.  In case you’re unfamiliar with UCM, they are a nonprofit organization that has been in Athens since 1968 and encourages engagement between Ohio University and the Athens community while promoting spiritual growth, community service, and work for justice through socially progressive interfaith values. 

Often times down here at OU there seems to be a real disconnect between the students on campus and the rest of the Southeast Ohio area that we call home for four or more years.  While there are certainly some Bobcats down here who couldn’t tell the difference between Albany and Amesville or Shade and Stewart there is a significant population of students who are working hard to break that stereotype by becoming involved not just in the immediate Athens are, but in towns throughout Southeast Ohio.  This Saturday I had the opportunity to tag along with a few of those students as a group of volunteers from UCM traveled up to Shawnee, Ohio bright and early to volunteer with the Little Cities of Black Diamond organization.

It was pretty amazing to see a group of college students gather at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning and devote most of their entire morning and afternoon to helping out people in a small town almost an hour away from campus.  Though, really, the most impressive thing wasn’t the time commitment that the volunteers made, but rather how they interacted with the members of the community in Shawnee.  This seems to be an overarching theme in all of the work that United Campus Ministry does.  Trust me, it’s a big organization that is involved in a dizzying amount of activities and causes throughout the Southeast Ohio region, but it seems that at the heart of everything that UCM does is the desire to bridge the gap between students at Ohio University and the community that surrounds them.  Needless to say there are some parallels in that and what we hope to do here at Project C, so I’m pretty excited that we have the opportunity to work with them this year, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what more they have to offer the community!

- Ryan Young | Content Producer

Athens Beautification Day

     "Wow! He is a Showman!" volunteer, Nick Shank, shouted after President Roderick McDavis opened Sunday's Athens Beautification Day. The almost uncontainable enthusiasm from both President McDavis and my friend, Nick, summed up the overall feeling of the day for me. It was so encouraging seeing students and community members blanket the amphitheater outside Scripps Hall on a Sunday afternoon because, like McDavis said, we were there not because we had to be there but because we wanted to be there.

Student and community member volunteers listening to Mayor Paul Whiel give the opening address. There's 800 people there. Eight. Hundred.

     Friendships are strengthened and created through these volunteering opportunities. You bond with other residents and community members, learning more about the place you have occupied (or will occupy) for four of the most unique years of your life. The Off-Campus Life Commission of OU Student Senate has done an incredible job organizing Athens Bday (Athens Beautification Day) this year. Their goal is a simple one, Keep Athens Beautiful. Anyone can see the beauty in Athens, not just the lively, picturesque town and it’s unique businesses but the nature that surrounds and engulfs it and most of all, the people that reside in it. Over the past eight years the event has grown from a few small groups of people to an astounding 800 students and community members this year. There were 30 projects planned covering a five square mile radius. Some of these projects were located at Stroud's Run, The Ridges, Passion Works, the Eco House, and numerous parks. Tasks ranged from graffiti removal and trash cleanup, to weeding, painting, landscaping and other pick-me-ups. Because there were so many volunteers and because we were so eager to help out, occasionally those residents and volunteers in charge had to do a little scrounging to find more jobs for us to do!

Sarah, surrounded by her signature color.

     I had an absolute blast helping out with Annette Drapac and Ryan Young at Putt People First, the putt putt golf course at The Ridges. In case you don't really know what the colorful course is all about, don't worry; I've got you covered. The course is a fundraiser that supports the Employment Services Program for People with Disabilities and the Athens Area Mediation Service (a group dedicated to finding cooperative approaches to resolving disputes in nice, calm ways). Local businesses sponsor a hole and in turn get a snazzy advertisement that becomes the obstacles for that particular hole. Too Cool.

            What else was cool? Definitely not us; we were sweating up a storm. The sun decided to grace us with its presence finally, making the day enjoyable to work in. Honestly, we could not have attempted half the projects if it was another classic day of rain, so I thank you for joining us, sunshine.

Please note the pocket protector, he's handsome and smart.

There must have been over 30 people helping out in that small stretch of land, weeding painting, sweeping, and building. Annette reconstructed a few obstacles, and she, Ryan, and I painted a few of the signs that will soon showcase advertisements. I stuck with the paint and made my way to all that was green. By the end of the day, my hands were coated in a layer of green paint. Kermit was right; it's not easy being green. Speaking of frogs, Ryan made this frog one of the most handsome frogs in all of Athens. Probably all of Ohio.

     Helping those who need it, repairing the broken, breathing new life into the old and worn out, when you look back at all the effort you and your friends put forth, there is often a great sense of humility, joy and honor in knowing that you had a part in all. The coolest part about volunteering is that anyone can do it. Any bit of effort has an affect. When I take a look around these last four years in Athens, I am so happy and so blessed to have been apart of all this change.

Annette & Sarah working hard on reconstructing the quilted obstacles.

-Sarah MillerBehind the Scenes team l Project C

New Features on the 2012 Project C website

Developing for the Future

A form that allows us to add a new organization to the site

The Project C web team has been working hard to improve the user experience and flow on the site as you read last week, but that is not all we are focused on this year. Our biggest stress on our team is to prepare for the future.

The website development team is taking this to heart as we begin to integrate the site into a content management system (or CMS) called Drupal. This framework will allow for us to easily publish new content each year with simple forms rather than developing each page individually. With the site fully integrated into a CMS, future teams will be able to focus their efforts on content production, fundraising, and marketing.

Everyone gets two votes!

Our log in and registration buttons in the corner of our site

One of the biggest changes to our website this year will be the change in our voting system. Last year we limited each IP address that visited the site to only two votes. In simple terms, this meant each household only had two votes. We realize that this severely limited the ability for everyone in the community to be able to vote.

The vote button on the project pages of the site

Our solution to this is to give each email two votes per day. All we simply ask is to register on our site and create a password to be able to login and vote each day. We promise to send out a maximum of two emails a year to remind you to either nominate or vote for the projects (no spam).

A graph that will show how many shares each project has

Tools for the Organizations

This year we wanted to give the organizations more feedback about how much support their stories are receiving during the week of voting. We are going to be providing graphs and information graphics that helps to show the sharing activity on the site.

The next 4 weeks will be nothing less than a challenge to finish the site on time, but as I always say, “Where there is faith and passion, there is hope.” And let me reassure you, I have never seen more faith or passion in a team as this one.

Structuring a User-Centered Website

The User Experience [UX] design team has been organizing various methods of user testing, specifically targeting more efficient ways of communicating content to our audience. Our strategy began with the user test, which involved having several volunteers tour through our 2011 site. From their feedback, as a team, we were able to map out pros and cons and make changes coming to the 2012 site, accordingly.

What Users Liked and Disliked About Our 2011 Site

Pros of the site included the overall design; its colors and pictures appealed to all of our test users. One thing we were surprised to learn is that many of the users preferred the footer to the main navigation. As far as cons go, many of the users stressed that the site needed better organization and clarification to understand the meaning and purpose behind the website. We also discovered that our language wasn’t well written, making it difficult for users to understand our links.

With this valuable user feedback, the UX team went straight to work on concept maps, site maps, user flow diagrams and detailed wireframes of each page to prepare the creation of a new, more user friendly website for Project C!

The development and UX teams working. Alisa Kessler, pictured far left, Jess Buse, center right, and Steph Rumph, far right.

According to our user feedback, we mapped out a user flow diagram to better understand the process our users experience when navigating through the site. Our goal was to create an easy, organized, and direct user flow with multiple options to reach your destination on the site.

Priorities for User Experience

Presenting the featured organizations was our main concern, followed by stressing the option to learn about them and provide the opportunity to vote, or learning how to get involved with that organization. We’ve also established the idea to share the stories of these organizations by focusing on social networking and bringing more traffic to the website to educate more individuals.

To wrap up the initial UX phase, we worked on several wireframe drafts. After our own team members presented their sketches and ideas, we began sketching out the overall idea on whiteboard with the design team.

From this first wireframe, the UX team built the first Photoshop wireframe, which was tweaked and edited a dozen times. In class, the entire team critiqued each wireframe draft for further improvement. At this point, the UX team is finalizing wireframes in-between design critiques to figure out what layouts work best on each page to prepare for the visual design and development phase!

We’re so excited to launch the 2012 Project C site, sharing our work with all of you! Your feedback is crucial and highly valued; if you would like to participate in our second round of user testing please email annette@clickingcreateschange.com.

Alisa Kessler // Steph Rumph // Jess Buse

User Experience Team | Project C