Digital Arts Service Corps - volunteer recruitment

Month Eight: The BTOP Shuffle

Melissa Niiya — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:07:18 +0000

March was crazy. LTSC had applied as a partner with a bunch of other California organizations for funding on the first round of BTOP, a federal grant for developing broadband access. First, we found out that we didn't get the first round grant; then, we learned we were being dropped from the partnership. So, we decided to apply on our own for the next round, which meant the beginning of March was pretty much non-stop grant writing and cranking out a 50-page application in about a week and a half. We probably won't get this second round, but it was worth a try.

Now that the application has been submitted, I've gone back to the networking and training of residents. I've recruited a few residents to become "Network Representatives." Starting next week, they'll be learning about the free internet at their building, how to fix it, etc. They'll also be learning how to teach their fellow residents how to log on, how to troubleshoot, etc. Hoping to recruit more volunteers so every building has two representatives.

Have also been trying to stabilize the free wifi at this building. So far, it has involved frankensteining some equipment, some soldering, and a lot of dragging ethernet cable through bird shit. :)

Hope everyone is doing well as we approach the final few months...

Month Seven: Rethinking

Melissa Niiya — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:39:53 +0000

LTSC (and quite a few other CA orgs) lost out on a big time federal grant. We're facing a pretty big budget shortfall, and a bunch of projects and plans are going to have to be slimmed down or eliminated in order to keep core programs afloat.

In the past few weeks, I've been putting together a curriculum packet to train resident volunteers in networking. The plan was to offer a small stipend, but now that we don't have that to give, I'm gonna change the recruitment strategy a bit (beg beg beg, and/or possibly find a business who'd be willing to donate something).

Was also planning to fix one of the residential networks. Without any money for equipment, this will be difficult. But rummaging around, I found a bunch of unused network equipment... hope to make this work.

My plan for the next few months will include time spent on trying to figure out how to make other tech programs and projects (ones that I previously wasn't directly involved in, such as our CTCs) stay aloft and be as sustainable as possible. I feel like CTCs are often on a knife's edge when it comes to keeping open and functional, and I think we should start to explore partnerships outside of LTSC's usual realm (there's a lot of turning inward to Little Tokyo/JA organizations, I feel).

My supervisor's replacement has been hired and is going to start working sometime in March I think. Hopefully the transition goes well.

Also, these are awesome and have been a little bit useful for residents with external wifi adapter antennas:
http://urbanwireless.info/index.php/antennas/parabolic-reflector

¡Arriba Latinitas!

Claudia Escobar — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:16:43 +0000

Greetings from El Paso, Texas! Another month at Latinitas and it feels like I have been here forever! I enjoy my job and the best part is to meet new faces who are interested in helping out Latinitas. I have been working on recruiting new volunteers interested in helping their community through Latinitas. It’s hard to find people who want to give up some time for a good cause. I have also been making new activities for our after school clubs. I have to come up with at least 4 a month for a total of 48 fresh new activities. The goal is for me to compile about 300 activities and make some new ones. It looks easy but it’s hard. I have also been working in a parent packet which includes a letter telling the parents who we are and what we do (a lot of parents don’t know where their daughters go afterschool, so we thought this would help us with donations) and also a registration form. Every form and application that I create I have to translate to Spanish, which isn’t easy, Spanish is my first language but having to translate and keep the same meaning it has in English, is hard. Also, I have been training new Club Leaders, so the training and keeping updates with them has been challenging, but fun.

Fortunately, we have had a good turn out in searching for volunteers within local community colleges and university. They have sent their students to volunteer with us and we have connected them with the clubs as mentors. Some of the challenges though have been recruiting girls. We have a PR intern that works in promoting our clubs, she has done so much but attendance is still low. We have a low budget and can’t have ice cream socials to bring in girls this semester so I don’t know how to bring them in without incentives. I am worried about girl attendance in the clubs and not having enough girls and just having a lot of volunteers that don’t have girls to mentors. I am also worried about coming up with fresh new activities and not make them repetitive. I have asked volunteers to help me in sharing their creativity so I want to see how that goes. Also, I have heard some volunteers get discouraged by not seeing girls so sometimes I worry I am not doing a good job keeping volunteers interested.

On a personal note, there was hail in El Paso about 2 weeks ago, golf size. I also got a kidney infection around the same time. I am better now but now the hail totally dented my car and cracked my windshield. I didn’t know that hail would come to El Paso (it’s a desert where it never rains) so I don’t have full coverage. I am now driving s total loss Chrysler Sebring but who knows what waits for me next.

attached: Letter to Parents in both English and Spanish