Inspiration
TrashMob founder, Joe Beernink, first gained inspiration for TrashMob from Microsoft colleagues. An idea formed for a project that would bring people together to take small, positive actions that would cascade into meaningful long term effects. Joe, passionate about pollution and climate change, took inspiration from Edgar McGregor in California who spent over 580 days cleaning up a park in his community. He began cleaning up his own local parks, and others soon began to take notice. After realizing cleaning up would be too much to do on his own, Joe saw potential in connecting others. He knew that technology had potential to fix these human problems, and assembled a team to help bring his vision to life.
What it does
Today, TrashMob has provided communities the opportunity to create and participate in TrashMobs of their own. The TrashMob team is continuously coming up with more ways to grow the TrashMob community to achieve the common goal of bettering our community!
How I built it
It started out as a personal project in 2021 that turned into a hackathon at Microsoft, which then turned into an official 501(c)(3) in 2022. All the development has been done by volunteers.
Challenges I ran into
There is so much to to, and we always need more developers to help get it done.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We turned an idea into a full nonprofit in just over 1 year, and have had immediate positive effects on communities where TrashMob events are happening.
What I learned
Overcoming bureaucratic inertia is a huge challenge. Community leadership wants to help, but budgets and insurance and liability is always a top concern for them, so much of the effort going into the site feature now revolves around overcoming those issues.
What's next for TrashMob.eco
We're hoping to launch a mobile app in 2022, and are always adding new features to the site.
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