This article originally appeared in The Enterprise on January 2, 2010.
The Christmas carols and television specials all encouraged us to keep the holiday spirit alive all year round.
Here comes an opportunity to do just that.
On the weekend of March 19, St. Mary's College of Maryland will be hosting the county's first GiveCamp, in which technical volunteers gather to help local nonprofits develop custom software solutions to their organizational, fundraising and service needs.
The three-day event aims to connect Southern Maryland's software coding wizards with regional organizations that can't afford or can't find a software setup to do their good works.
So far, 20 local nonprofits have signed up, according to the event's Web site.
"We have stopped taking applications for non-profits, because we need to start gathering their specifications," said Jim Pendarvis of Hollywood, who is bringing GiveCamp to the region. "We actually accepted all of the programs that requested help."
But there are only a little more than two dozen volunteers. The program is seeking nontechnical volunteers as well as software developers, designers, and database administrators.
"Help us out," Pendarvis said. "We're looking for [database administrators], developers and sponsors."
Pendarvis said that he is getting started early, since the program takes a lot of coordination.
"It takes about six months to plan all this," Pendarvis said, noting that he is busy rounding up food donations and volunteers. "We went live with this the end of September, beginning of October."
The custom software projects considered for production are new Web sites or a small data-collection applications to keep track of members. The only limitation is that the project should be scaled for completion within a weekend.
"It is technology agnostic," Pendarvis said, noting he is inviting all kinds of different coding specialists.
Terri Griest, coordinator for Autism Spectrum Support Group of Southern Maryland, is excited that her group will be getting a brand new Web site from GiveCamp.
The group's current Web site, Griest said, is "not very attractive. We've had for two years nothing but a legal disclaimer and a calendar."
During GiveCamp, developers are welcome to go home in the evenings or camp out all weekend long. Organizers plan to provide food and drink and maybe even set up game systems for developers who need a little break.
After the GiveCamp session, all source code must be turned over to the charities at the end of the weekend. Developers cannot ask for payment, and the charities are responsible for maintaining the code from then on.
According to its Web site, the GiveCamp concept originated in Dallas, Texas in 2008 when Chris Koenig, a Microsoft employee, gathered developers together over a weekend and developed Web site and computer programs for local non-profit organizations.
"I heard about it, actually, via Twitter," Pendarvis said, noting that he participates in the site's weekly Follow Friday event. "I saw it and said, ‘This needs to be here.'"
"This is a wonderful opportunity for people in the [information technology] field to volunteer in their community," Griest said, adding that it was also a great opportunity for non-profit groups to get IT services they couldn't ordinarily afford.
To register to help or to donate to Southern Maryland GiveCamp, visit www.somdgc.org. jfriess@somdnews.com |
