At the end of 2011, my wife Jen and I decided we would give of either our time or our money at least once per week in 2012. We decided to donate at least two hours of our time or at least $25 each week. As we began the new year, many of our friends were interested in our new commitment, and so I decided to write about the organizations we work with and the experiences we have. The stories told here are meant to shed some light on volunteering - the kind of work that is out there, and the clientele that is served, and to provide information about who is making a difference out there, and what you can do to help. Please come back often and share our experiences as we move through our giving year.

Also, we are always looking for new organizations to work with, groups that are doing good work and could use either our hands or our money. If you know of a volunteer opportunity or worthy cause, please leave it in a comment. Thanks for your help!

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Week 9 - Worldreader.org

This week I found what is essentially a start-up charity.  They are only a couple years old and are still trying to figure out the best way to reach their goals, but they have made an impressive start.  The goal of Worldreader.org is to improve the functional literacy of children in the developing world.  To achieve this, they are testing the feasibility of distributing Kindle e-readers to students in developing countries.  They have partnered with Amazon.com, some publishing houses and a bunch of other corporations, universities and governments to try to sort out the best way to use these e-readers to help improve literacy around the world.

So far, they have done two trials to see how well their proposed methodology works.  The first was in Barcelona to look at the logistics of classroom use for the e-readers, and the second was in Ghana, to look at the logistics of getting the readers to a location, charging them, loading them, distributing them, and teaching the kids to use them.  Both trials were deemed very successful, and promising for larger scale deployment.  The organization published a report about the second trial and summed up the clear benefits as well as the challenges of a larger deployment.  This is what they had to say:


Here  are  our  key  observations  in  the  Ayenyah  school  that  lead  us  to  believe  that e-­‐readers  have  the  potential  to  be  deployed  successfully  in  similar communities and  schools  in  developing  countries:

· These  6th-­‐grade  students  in  a  village  in  Ghana,  who  had  used  cell  phones  but had  no  experience  with  computers,  were  all  able  to  learn  to  use  the Kindle successfully  after  several  hours  of  training  and  several  days  of  practice.

· Reading  digital  books  was  an  acceptable  alternative  to  reading  paper  books, and  the  kids  quickly  forgot  they  were  using  a  device  and  became  absorbed in the  stories  they  were  reading.

· Kids  were  excited  to  read  using  the  device,  in  part  because  it  was  novel  and fun  to  use,  and  also  because  it  was  less  intimidating  due  to  the  built­‐in dictionary  which  helped  readers decipher  the  meaning  of  new  words.

·  Kids  also  read  more  using  the  Kindle  because  of  the  variety  of  books  on  the device  and  the  instant  availability  of  thousands  more,  as  well  as  local  and timely  material  like  Ghana  football  scores.
·  The  Kindles  supported  the  process  of  learning  to  read,  especially  for  new language  learners,  due  to  the  built-­‐in  dictionary  to  look  up  words,  and  the text-­‐to-­‐speech  capability  for  pronunciation  (although  mechanical-­‐sounding).

·  The  infrastructure  already  in  place  for  mobile  phones  supports  e-­‐readers: Low-­‐power  Kindles  successfully  charged  from  solar-­‐powered  car  batteries  in an  hour,  we  were  able  to  download  books  via  the  satellite  internet  link  in  45 seconds,  and  there  was  cell  phone  coverage  in  the  village.
Here  are  the  main  challenges  we  observed  that  could  affect adoption  in developing  countries:

·  The  preparation  and  setup  of  the  e-­‐readers  -  buying,  unpacking,  charging, loading with  books,  etc.  -  was time-­‐consuming  and  will  be  challenging  to scale without  developing  new  methods,  in  cooperation  with  the manufacturers.  There  was  also  a  lack  of  tools  for  managing  many  devices;  for example,  there  was  no  central  way  to  see  which  devices  had which  books loaded.
·  There  were  a  number  of  usability  issues  with  the  Kindles  that,  while  not barriers,  increased  the  learning  curve,  such  as  several  ways  to  accidently  hide books,  and  a  setting  that  drains  the  battery quickly.    A  light  was  also commonly  requested,  so  the  students  could  read  at  night.
·  The  current  cost  of  e-­‐readers  and  books,  along  with  DRM  (digital  rights management)  policies,  would need to be  adapted  to  the  market  and  to educational  use.
·  Content  for  this  trial  was  purchased  using  personal  credit  cards,  but  new payment methods will need to be  supported  for  widescale  deployment,  such as educational  invoicing,  and  the  scratch-­‐off  cards used  for  mobile  phones.
·  There  is  currently  a  lack  of  local  content  available  on  e-­‐readers,  so  local publishers  would  need  to  be  encouraged  to  digitize  their  content.
·  While  ruggedness  of  the  devices  was  not  a  problem  in  our  study,  the conditions  we  observed  -­‐  dust,  dirt,  rain,  and  the  rigors  of  child  handling  -­‐ will  need  to  be  considered  by  e-­‐reader  manufacturers.
And  finally,  we  discovered  that  the  importance  of  buy-­‐in  by  the  school administration,  and  the  support  of  a  local  champion,  cannot  be  understated.  In our  trial,  the  headmaster,  Earnest,  and  the  6th-­‐grade teacher,  Philip, were extremely  enthusiastic  and  supportive,  and  this  contributed  to  the  success  of  the trial.


As you can see, this organization is taking careful, well planned steps to achieve their goals.  They are working with their partners to overcome some of the challenges listed above, like working with Amazon to make Kindles available for less and to make some of the software more conducive to the specific needs of outfitting an entire school with e-readers.  They are also working with local authors and publishers to quickly publish e-books in native languages and pertaining to local topics.  By all accounts, the methodology employed in Ghana, taken to a large scale, could transform learning in all of the developing world.  It could literally bring the whole world to the doorstep of millions of children.

This organization has not helped millions yet, but they are sure planning to do so.  I love their goal, and I am very impressed with their careful planning and insightful analysis of the challenges they face.  On top of all of that, their partners cover their administrative costs, so 100% of all donations goes directly to buying e-readers and e-books.  I am looking forward to watching their progress!

If you would like to learn more, or to donate, go to:

Worldreader.org

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Week 8 - DonorsChoose.org

This week Jen and I found ourselves with no place to volunteer, so we went looking for a good cause worthy of a donation.  The site we chose was one I actually came across while reading the comics page.  In a Sunday Doonesbury comic, the characters mentioned a site called DonorsChoose.org, and also gave a code that would earn a matching donation.  I decided to look into it.

It turns out that DonorsChoose.org is a site where teachers from all over the country ask for things that would benefit their students but that they cannot afford to buy with their yearly budgets.  The requests are classified as projects, because the materials listed are usually centered around a particular learning goal or unit.  In a quick perusal of the site, I saw requests for books, white boards, a new carpet - all kinds of things.  You can sort the requests by geographical location, from state to city, to specific schools.  You can also sort by subject area, so you can give to kids learning about something you care about in a place you care about.  There are also search categories for the kind of school (charter, magnet, Montessori) and various other criteria.  Like Kiva loans, you can make a small donation that is grouped together with others to eventually be able to purchase the items that have been requested.

One of the best things about the site is that there are a number of organizations, from corporations to foundations that will match the donation you make.  You need to have a code to activate the match when you check out, but they are not too hard to find.  I used the code "Zonker" (a character from Doonesbury) that I saw on the comics page.  In a quick search, I also found "REAL SIMPLE" and "SPARK" as codes that would get 100% matching.  You can also do a search on the site itself, in the help center area.  I searched "matching" and got a bunch of articles about current matching offers that were available.

The other thing that I liked about the site was that it lists the challenges facing the schools that are making the requests.  In particular, it highlights schools that are in areas of high poverty rates so that you can focus donations where they are most needed.

After looking around a little and getting a feel for the site, we decided to support a teacher here in Chicago who was trying to bring Shakespeare into her classroom.  She is trying to buy a classroom set of three different versions of Macbeth, including the original, a plain speech version, and a comic book version.  Her idea is to bring the story to the kids at whatever level they can perceive it, and then help them understand more of the depth and poetry of the play as they become more familiar with it.  You can see the teacher's description HERE.

Obviously, both teaching and Shakespeare hit close to home for us, and we were moved to be able to help out with both in one swipe, and double our donation through matching to boot.  This site offers a huge range of possible giving, and all of it to help kids get more out of their education.  It also help teachers bring more resources to bear, and hopefully makes the very hard job they do a little easier.

If you would like to donate, check out their website:

DonorsChoose.org

Friday, February 17, 2012

Week 7 - Lakeview Pantry, second visit

This week we returned to the Lakeview Pantry, West.  As before, we worked distributing food stuffs to those in need.  (For an overview of what the pantry does, see the post from our fist visit, HERE.)  As I noted in my last post about the Greater Chicago Food Depository, I was able to take more pictures and gather more details because I did not have to learn the ropes.  I also got a lot more information about the "behind the scenes" work at the pantry, but I will say more about that later.

Jen and I got to the pantry a little early, and so we helped out the prep crew by bringing an assortment of meats from the freezer to distribution area.  It is always a challenge to set up the meat area.  The goal is to offer 4 choices from different categories of meat, but the stock of meat that the pantry has is not always easily divided - each category needs to have about 30 items in it to guarantee that there will be enough for everyone. For example, this week, there was plenty of chicken, so one of the four categories was just that - chicken.   We found 30 beef items, mostly ground chuck or sirloin.  We also found 30 packages of various kinds of sausage, mostly from Trader Joe's.  It was mostly chicken sausage, but was spiced in a number of different ways and made for a nice selection.  The final category proved to be something of a problem.  We did not have enough pork to make a it a category, or enough fish, so we ended up offering a mish mash of items.  There were some very nice cuts of fish, including salmon, mahi mahi, and tilapia, as well as some beef tips, curry chicken tenders, ribs, and a couple of hams that worked well for some of the larger families.  Since I knew what the story with the meat was, I got picked to distribute at that station.  Jen got picked to do breads and desserts, where I was the last time we were here.  That meant we were pretty far apart on the line, so we did not talk to each other at all during the time the pantry was open.

This week there was a smaller crowd of people than the last time we were here, and many of them were just collecting for themselves instead for a family.  We also had a number of large families, with five, six and in one case seven members.  Everyone was friendly, and were much less particular about the kind of meat they got than they were about bread the last time.  I also handed out eggs, milk and red orange juice, which provided for a lot of conversation.  Mostly, no one recognized the bottles of red juice as OJ, and I had to convince them.  Rounding out my station was a selection of fresh salads, some salsa and tabbouleh, and some single serving peach sorbet cups.

In all, we served 32 individuals representing 60 people.  There were a number of memorable people - a mother with her very young (maybe two or three years old) daughter, a couple where the husband had been laid off the day before, and a mother with three toddlers at home.  That last woman who was collecting for a family of four, kept telling us that we were giving her too much because she only had little ones.  It was really great to be able to see the gratitude on here face, and on the faces of all the other people.  I was thanked warmly many times during the night, and I really got into a groove of making conversation to help the clients feel relaxed and welcomed.  It was great to connect with so many people and because I was the first stop in the line, there was not a rush at all.  When you work further down, things get a little more backed up as people take time to get the food into bags and carts, and you have to focus more on making sure everyone gets what they are due without taking too much.

The pictures below show you the general serving area and a selection of the food that is offered:



If you look at the top picture, which was taken at the end of the night, you can see chairs on the right.  These are unstacked to make two rows in the tiled area where the clients come to wait their turn.  They are checked in one by one, and then they go up to the counter.  There are five stops along the counter - meat and fresh items, canned goods, pastas and crackers and such, breads and desserts, and fresh produce (on the shelf at the end).  They are then pointed at the door (where the exit sign is) and they can be on their way.

At the end of the night, I spent a little time talking with Carrie, who runs the pantry.  I took a picture of here, but it turned out to be a little unflattering - I will try again next time...  In any case, she reminded me that Anyone who lives in an area bounded by Damen St. on the West, Irving Park Rd. on the North, Racine St. on the East and Fullerton Ave. on the south can come and get food from the pantry, once per month.  She also told me that the East location of the pantry is actually bigger and has some office space.  The pantry has 12 - 13 full time staff members, but Carrie is the only full time person at the West location.  She has one part time assistant, and the rest of the labor is all done by volunteers.  Lately, the pantry has been doing a lot to try to discover what else they can be doing to help their clients.  They recently did a survey that revealed some interesting things.  Not surprisingly, many of the respondents said they felt like they were out side of the community, or did not have any community that they felt a part of.  As a result, the pantry is doing more social gatherings and combining social and educational opportunities.  See the picture of their white board:


If you look closely, you can see that there is a class in nutrition, a social events that also includes information on other services that are available to those in need, and an opportunity for HIV testing.  By expanding and offering theses services, the pantry can become a one stop resource to serve a wide variety of needs beyond hunger.

Another interesting result of the survey was that a much greater number of respondents had access to the internet than expected.  They found that people took advantage of public libraries as well as relatives or friends to be able to stay connected, which led to an online calendar of events being posted on the pantry website.  If you are interested, you can check it out HERE.

The last story Carrie had for me was about a student group from the nearby church school that toured the pantry last week.  They were curious about how the pantry was able to afford to give away all the food for free, and asked about how long it takes to hand out all the food in their storage area. (The answer is about three weeks, serving about 350 people per week.)  Carrie remarked that it was really enjoyable to see how much the kids got into the idea of helping others, and how much wonder they brought into the room.  All in all, the pantry has been busy!

Just like last time, Jen and I had a blast.  We signed up for a night in a couple weeks, and I am quite sure at this point that we will keep working with Carrie and her team for a long time.  It is such a lift to be able to help these people, and to make friends and have fun at the same time, that I don't think we could stop if we wanted to, so look for most posts from the pantry.

If you want to help, you can give time or money on the pantry's website:

Lakeview Pantry

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Week Six - Greater Chicago Food Depository, second visit



This week Jen and I went back to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, and we took our friend Vicki with us.  It was her first time, and we had a great time.  We worked on the flex line again making individual emergency food boxes (for more information about the GFCD and how the flex line works, see my post from our first visit HERE), but this time I got a spot putting raisins in to the boxes.  Vicki worked with me as a replenish-er and Jen worked on the back line doing clean up.  She loves that job because she gets to race around and be effective in a bunch of different places.  I liked my job because I got to stand in one place and chat with Vicki.  The raisins are the last thing to go in the boxes before they get labelled, weighed and taped up, so it was pretty easy - no special place in the box the food had to go or particular way it had to sit, just toss the 9 oz. package of raisins on top.

Since this was not a new thing for us, I had the presence of mind to stop and collect a little more information about what we were doing and about the GCFD.  I also took a couple pictures, which you will find below.  Today was a little bit of a slow day with the volunteers.  We had to stop the line more than last time, and so we packaged only 1,110 boxes of food, adding up to about 27,756 pounds of food.  Remember, these are boxes that are distributed by the city, through the Department of Health and Human Services to people with a sudden, unexpected lack of food.  They are meant to feed a single person for three to four days.  This time through, I made some notes about what was in the boxes.

The boxes look like this when they are full:


They contain: Corn Flakes, oatmeal, a can of pinto beans, a can of baked beans, a can of spagehtti and meatballs, a can of beef stew, a can of chili, a can of sardines, a can of tuna, a can of tomato soup, a tub of drink mix (Kool-aid), two bags of rice, a bag of raisins, a large box of saltines, a box of macaroni and cheese, a can of peaches, a can of applesauce, a can of green beans, a can of mixed vegetables, a can of chicken noodle soup, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of grape jelly and three packets of powdered milk.

This all adds up to about 25 pounds of food, although it is worth noting that there is nothing fresh here - no real milk, no eggs, and no produce.  Obviously it would be impractical to prepare those things the way that these boxes are prepared, but it means that the people who need and receive these boxes also need additional help.

Fortunately, the GFCD also works with partners like the Lakeview Pantry (see week 5, part II HERE) to fill in the gaps left by what these boxes cannot provide.  This week I found out that the GFCD moves more than 69 million pounds of food through its warehouse each year, meaning they move well over one million pounds per week.  The food they collect, process and distribute goes to 678,000 people each year in the Chicago-land area.  It is sent to food pantries, shelters and soup kitchens all over Cook County, in addition to being packed into these rescue boxes for individuals and other, larger rescue boxes for families.  The volunteers who come and work throughout each week at the GCFD save the need to hire 45 additional staff positions, thus allowing the GCFD to put more resources into getting and delivering food.

The Depository guarantees its partners that is will have 18 different foods reliably available at any time.  This is to ensure that the food being given to those in need is comprised of a balanced and healthy mix of food products.  This picture shows all of the food that make sure to always have in stock:


The list of these foods looks like this:



I also thought you might like to see how what the flex line looks like, so I shot some pictures of that:



And just give props to a really hard working guy, this is a picture of Milton.  He wrangles all of these people and teaches them how to run the flex line a very short amount of time.  He is incredibly friendly and patient, and it is clear that he really enjoys his work.


To sum up , we had another great day at the GCFD, and as soon as we finished working, we got online to book another day to volunteer, but not until May.  We have lots of other places to visit too, after all.

If you like what they are doing at GCFD, they can always use your help.  You can find them at:

The Greater Chicago Food Depository

Friday, February 3, 2012

Week 5 - Part II - The Lakeview Pantry

Well, so it turns out that this week is a double header...We had been trying to get in to work at the Lakeview Pantry, a food distribution center, and they got back to us with an opening, so we jumped right in.  This organization is a small privately funded charity that works to serve a specific geographic location in the Lakeview neighbor hood.  They buy food from the Greater Chicago Food Depository, as well as picking up donations from Trader Joe's and Whole Foods locations in the area.  The Pantry then hands the food out to needy families three times per week.  The amount of food that a family can take home is significant - enough to feed that family for around two weeks.  The average food package is around 50# of food from frozen meat to canned goods, pasta and other dry goods, bread, dessert, and fruits and vegetables.  Families can get the full portion of food once per month, and can return every week to get fresh fruits, vegetables and bread products. For all that volume of food, the place itself is tiny, nestled in the basement of the gym at St. Alphonsus school.  It is crowded and loud, but the staff wrangles all of the volunteers and the patrons with startling efficiency.  In addition to food distribution, the Pantry makes an effort to provide for other areas of life as well.  There are some clothes and small household items available to the patrons, all free of charge.  These are the result of direct donations.  The Pantry also had a case worker on site to help patrons get information on other services that they might need.  Finally, the Pantry hosts some social events, like book clubs and other meet-ups to help meet the social needs of its clients.

Jen and I arrived for our shift and were immediately greeted with paperwork.  In addition to telling the staff a little about ourselves, the paperwork included a number of privacy and liability agreements.  It is clear that the goal is to make sure that the dignity of the clients is maintained at all times.  We were given a quick orientation and then began to work.  Jen was assigned to help greet patrons and to organize those who were just there for their weekly produce and bread allotment.  I was assigned to hand out products, in this case, cereal, cooking oil, oatmeal or grits, fruit juice, bread and desserts.  Every recipient has to register with the pantry workers, and once they do, they move down a counter where they are presented with the food the is available to them.  They are allowed to take or leave any of it.  The process is fairly slow, taking about 15 minutes for each person.  One person can collect food for a family of  six people or more, if needed, so the patrons have to think about how they are going to move all of that volume of food.  The pantry provides some grocery bags and boxes, but many of the patrons brought along their own bags, carts, etc.  Moving all of the food is what takes the most time, and we saw a number of the patrons, especially those collecting for large families, struggle to keep track of all of their food.  The pantry staff does what they can to make it easier for the patrons to handle all the food, but there limits to how much time they can afford to spend with any one person.

Jen's job was mostly about organizing the people who were in for the week to get bread and produce.  She was supposed to come around to all of them, check them in and then lead them to my station to get bread.  She found that this was a little overwhelming - all of the people crowded around her instead of waiting for her to come to them, but she managed herself very well and got everyone their turn.  After that, she helped get the food distributors things they needed, like refilling stocks of canned goods and double bagging plastic grocery bags for the patrons.

Overall, this was a deeply moving experience for both of us.  We were amazed at how upbeat and friendly the patrons of the food pantry were.  They were grateful and cooperative.  They understood that we could only give so much to each person, and they all thanked us and wished us a nice evening.  It sounds like that would not be so out of the ordinary - that you would expect people to thank you when you gave them food - but these people have so much more to worry about than whether I have a good night, and they still made a point to say it.  The best part of my night was working with a homeless man.  Most of the people we were helping were going home to a hungry family, but they were going home.  They had a way to refrigerate what we gave them and cook it when the time came.  This man had no such options, and word came down the line to help him find options that he did not have to cook or keep chilled.  He also had to calculate how much he could carry around with him.  Large boxes or bottles were too much.  That meant that I could give him less than half of what I had at my station.  In spite of that, he was friendly, talkative and exceedingly grateful.  He made it clear that he appreciated that we were trying to find what was just right for him, and that he didn't want to be a bother.  Can you imagine?! He has no where to go, no way to cook and is about to head out into the winter cold, but he does not want to bother me, who has a roof, a car, and a house full of food.  If the roles were reversed, I am quite sure I could not be as gracious as this man was. I really had to take a minute to collect myself after I helped him.  It absolutely slammed home why Jen and I are doing this, and it made want to volunteer every night of the week.

In all, we served 44 people over a three hour shift.  Those 44 people were collecting food for a total of 88 people when you add up all the family members they represented.  Compared to 1200 emergency food boxes at the Greater Chicago Food Depository or 19,000 meals at Feed My Starving Children, this number seems pretty anemic, but the experience of putting that food right into the hands of the people who need it was, without question, the most rewarding.  We signed up for another shift in a couple weeks, and will definitely make this a regular stop in our volunteering travels.


To give money or time, check out their website at:

Lakeview Pantry