After traveling to the St. Johns/St. Ann’s Outreach Center this week, the organization provided an eye-opening experience to the different lifestyles of the people in our community. In everyday life, it is easy to take for granted common accustoms, such as food, shelter, education, and even the modern technology that assists our everyday living. After our presentation at the outreach center, I could not help but to notice that technology, if presented to the Outreach Center, would have a huge impact on their success in their efforts to acquire social change within the Albany area.
During our presentation at the Outreach Center, the class was filed into a small building where we learned about the purpose of the shelter and the struggles that it faces to give the people of Albany a safe place to receive help. We walked through the kitchen and the storage areas, seeing first-hand the small amounts of canned and packaged goods they have for the families that come to eat. We saw a small rack of clothing, and a few volunteers trying to make ends meet. The woman who runs the center explained to us that they serve about three hundred families, and roughly two hundred- fifty to three hundred meals per day. She told us that the outreach center provides two managers paid jobs, but the majority of the staff consists of volunteers. She explained difficulties that the center faces with the high demand for food, since the neighboring community pantry is temporarily closed, and the produce supply recently cut drastically because of the excessive rain that passed through Albany. She also explained the G.E.D. program that they host at the center, as well as the donations of furniture and clothing in their small storage space. However, with the large demand of people in need, and the many different causes they support, the center’s grants have recently been cut from $18,000 to about $9,900 per year. Listening to her stories and hearing her frightening statistics was heart wrenching, and their lack of support from the government and the community is limiting their ability to provide a social change to the people in Albany who need it the most.
As a class of college students studying technology and the positive impact it can have on lives and a community, we know that there are many ways that the Outreach Center could benefit from the modern technology that we use every day. Telling the stories of the Outreach Center to people on social networks is the first step to receiving support from people in the community. Just like Team Sameer in Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith’s novel, The Dragonfly Effect, our class could spread the word about the center’s struggles and lack of support through a Facebook group. We can tell their story, while keeping in mind the goal of receiving support, and requiring help from those who receive the group invitation. This Facebook marketing method is the first step because it would make people aware of what is going on in their community outside of their daily lives, and could potentially help to receive donations and volunteers. Also, computers would greatly benefit the Outreach Center with the Writing Partnership and G.E.D. program. Internet is an essential part of so many aspects of our lives. It helps us access information, communicate, and it connects us to many different communities. The people of the Outreach Center should have the same benefits. The internet could be a great source of job opportunities and resources in the local community. The computers would allow the people at the center to access the internet, programs such as Microsoft Word, and many other applications to enrich their knowledge and help them to obtain the necessary education to find a job in today’s society. Along with the help of education, the Outreach Center would also benefit from computers because they would help them to keep track of their data and to record how many people are coming in and out of the center. This recorded data could be critical in trying to receive help from people within the community, or even in trying to persuade the government to give more grants. In these ways, the modern technology that we take advantage of everyday could be extremely beneficial to the Outreach Center to help them provide the social change within Albany that they struggle to achieve.
The St. John’s/St. Ann’s Outreach Center, as well as many other struggling outreach centers, could benefit extremely from the use of technology in their efforts to help the community. From marketing their stories to the general public, to providing computers for job applications and the recording of data, simple elements of modern technology could completely transform the center’s efforts in providing the social change necessary to make better lives for the people of Albany. As a class studying technology and the effects it can have on social change, I believe it is our obligation to help the volunteers of St. John’s/St. Ann’s to make the local community a better place.
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