ROC GARDEN

ODU lacks a medium for which it can document volunteer efforts, sponsorships, (etc) which would mutually benefit Roc Solid.

ODU already has Helper Helper, a program where students can find and track volunteer opportunities, but only displays individual statistics for the user and overall statistics for ODU, not how the event overall impacted the chosen organization.

Because of the plethora of volunteer opportunities on Helper Helper, Roc Solid could get lost in the crowd.

Often times it is hard to know when events are taking place, what exactly will be involved in said event, and how best to communicate interest in certain aspects of Roc Solid's process. It is also difficult for Roc Solid to convey how their event planning or project may be coming along in regards to resources, volunteers, or general progress.

Roc Solid lacks a satisfactory way to display volunteer efforts and their impact on the organization's mission to assist families affected by childhood cancer. Such visualization would require an algorithm to determine the importance to Roc Solid.

Current means of communication between Roc Solid and ODU are time consuming and archaic. There is no easy connection between volunteer and organization to handle communications that are relatively basic, such as asking for project ideas or searching for volunteer event opportunities.

The proposed medium for communication between ODU and Roc Solid is an opportunity board, where both sides can post ways in which they need help, and find opportunities to provide resources.

As a way to visualize these opportunities, a Roc Garden would be created, where rocks symbolize the various postings by both ODU and Roc Solid, with size indicating major or minor efforts. For example, a volunteer night to pack the hospital care bags could be a pebble in the garden, whereas requesting an idea for a senior group project could be a larger rock.

With the opportunity board, the old way of communication through phone calls and emails goes away, replaced instead by a series of notifications and feedback, automated by the portal itself.

Often times it is hard to know when events are taking place, what exactly will be involved in said event, and how best to communicate interest in certain aspects of Roc Solid's process. It is also difficult for Roc Solid to convey how their event planning or project may be coming along in regards to resources, volunteers, or general progress.

By posting ideas to an opportunity board as they occur to Roc Solid or are needed by ODU, no one gets left behind. Roc Solid has a place to post all their ideas and garner interest for them, while ODU has a place where they can find opportunities to fulfil degree requirements--or vise versa, where ODU students can post about degree requirements, and Roc Solid can provide ways to help.

The time and resources of Roc Solid and ODU are best spent doing meaningful, desired work for each other. With the opportunity board, both sides will see the ideas and needs of each other, cutting down on the amount of time needed to communicate these ideas, increasing time spent working on actual projects, and all over generating more support for families with children suffering from cancer.