we care

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Inspiration

There is strong evidence of the need to reduce the obstacles and barrier to personal expression [breathe out]

Little Free Library: *Started in 2009, Non-profit with presence in 88 countries, 75,000 locations in the world, 15 employees, 26,000+ volunteers Post Secret: *Started in 2005, Over 1 million thoughts shared

How we can build on this success:

First step can’t always be meeting a therapist or downloading an app
Commitment free expression without judgement
Community building without needing identification - safe space
DIY / Open-Source spirit (cards against humanity style)

Issues to tackle:

Non-digital access to mental health resources ('last-mile' problem)
Reduce the anxiety/barrier for the first mental health care interaction
Focus on hard to reach people (those without/sharing digital devices or youth)

What it does

Physical (hyper-local) community driven boxes that help people anonymously express themselves without judgement
Allow people to consume local mental health community resources without needing to setup an appointment, see someone in person, or even be seen as being vulnerable

How we built it

Crazy 2's (not 8's) design sprint
Rapid physical digital iteration (2 physical design iterations in 24 hours)
Simultaneously built website that integrates with twilio to capture text messages and push them via a python flask front-end

Challenges we ran into

Designing a physical product that integrates with a digital backend
HANDS-ON printing and actually building boxes helped us understand the 'out-of-the-box' setup simplification needed for someone downloading, printing, and using our product (REAL WORLD on-boarding)

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building a product that everyone here will be able to use here at the hackathon in physical and digital forms within 24 hours
Having something we can all download, print, use and setup to help our local community
Open-source, removing barriers to entry

What we learned

Real world physical product prototyping issues
1st interaction / onboarding is hard!

What's next for we care

One more iteration of physical box product
Upload print template to github
Print some out and put them in our own communities
Simplify process of creating new communities Reach youth or otherwise previously unreachable communities
Continue to build instragram community, highlight best submissions and helpful information, build an engaged audience with the younger community
Partner with local community outreach areas: libraries, churches, high schools, homeless shelters