Inspiration
As a wife of an exoffender and advocate of this community, this hackathon was completely in-line with my goals to bring more resources and an easier way to find help, to the exoffender community.
How it works
SecondChanceResources Library acts as a virtual library with 'books' that contain an ever-growing list of links to increase access to vital resources.
Challenges I ran into
There were plenty of challenges building a website while learning the languages, syntax and best practices on my own. I started this project with a vision, but no formal programming or web design background. In fact, the last time I did anything like this was customizing my Myspace background in 2002. The biggest challenge was translating my vision into reality. I wanted to be able to click the books from the homepage/bookshelf, and have the book 'open before you'. This became a huge challenge, having the book pick feature as well as the page flip feature. In the future, I plan to figure out a way to get both of these animations within the site.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
Learning HTML, CSS, JQUERY in a month's time, and learning how to purchase and host a domain. I ran into several roadblocks, some of which were relatively easy to resolve, and some of which required lots of ingenuity. :)
What I learned
I learned that there is a decent amount of resources out there, however, they are incredibly hard to find, especially for a novice web-searcher.
What's next for SecondChanceResources?
Interactive "book picking", inclusion of many more resources, and embedded maps for felons and registered offenders. Maps would find local temp and job agencies, locate food banks nearby, and point to resource centers like goodwill or salvation army. Embedded maps for registered offenders would allow them to see if a particular address falls within local residency restrictions (must live 1000+ ft from schools, parks, etc) as well as mapping local registration offices (DMV, DOC, Sherriff's Office, Local PD).
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