Merced Volunteers

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  Prototype: Home Page

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  Prototype: Newsletter Page

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  Prototype: Organizations Page

What inspired us?

Upon spending multiple years living in Merced, we noticed that there is a big disconnect from the UC Merced students and the local Merced community. Unfortunately, there are many biases that both sides have about one another which causes a lack of empathy between us. Because of this, we decided to create “Merced Volunteer” as a tool that bridges the gap between our two unique communities.

“Merced Volunteers” is a web application that partners with local non-profits around Merced County. It aims to bridge the gap between the UC Merced student study body and the local communities of Merced. We have created a simple way for event organizers and volunteers to collaborate together for the greater good.

Although there are many volunteer organizations/websites available on the market, we want to stay true to our roots by thinking locally. For many students, it is hard to independently find local volunteer opportunities on their own. Usually, these opportunities become available through certain clubs (ie. Circle K, MSA) or partaking in Engineering Service Learning. No doubt that these opportunities are exciting and unique on their own, but the downside is that students have to operate on the clubs/class schedules which can be very limiting.

“Volunteer Merced” is unique because we have partnered with local organizations to create volunteer opportunities that are specific to UC Merced students. This ensures safety, proper documentation of all events/opportunities and lenient schedules. Furthermore, what makes us stand out from our competitors is the unique volunteer opportunities that we offer.

For example, a CSE major can pair with a non-profit to create a website. Not only does this help the individual organization improve their company’s value, but it also provides the student with valuable experience and something to add to their portfolio. On the other hand, animal-loving students (whose landlords don’t allow pets) can pair with the many animal shelters in Merced to spend time with animals and destress. We aim to create untraditional volunteer opportunities that serve multiple purposes.

We believe that the UC Merced student body is creative, diligent and eager to make a difference. Volunteer Merced, provides these students with a safe, lenient and fun way to get involved with the Merced community. As we prepare to leave Merced for bigger things in the future, we want to help make a positive impact on not only our university but also the city that our university calls home.

What did we learn?

Initially, as a team, we had taken sub-sections of the project that we felt more comfortable and confident in. I took the design because I enjoy designing the most. However, though the process of debugging and endless errors, we all chimed in to help each other troubleshoot. Some of the key things we learned are: creating databases, key components of HTML/CSS design, learned Python, GitKraken and much more.

How we built it?

For our language, we used Python, SQL, and HTML/CSS. We also used SQLite, GitKraken, and Django as tools to help progress our project and keep organized.

Challenges we face?

The key challenge we faced was balancing the workload and managing time. In the beginning, we had a long list of tasks and ideas that we wanted to implement in our web-app. Although that was really fun and essential to our project, it caused run out of time in the end because we did not anticipate how much time debugging takes when we merge our tasks together. In addition, we also felt a little burned out but the workload that we had created for ourselves. In the end, we learn more from our struggles than we do from our successes so we are grateful for that.

Built With

• css
• django
• html5
• python
• sql