Inspiration
Being a part of non-profit organizations that fundraise for women shelters, daily interaction with underprivileged communities struggling to meet their basic healthcare needs inspired us to start off by making waste (unused medications being left to expire in households) into useful products for these populations. Although fundraisers may be supporting poor populations by providing money for surgeries and other major treatments, the day-to-day health struggle these populations face can be solved by providing over-the-counter medications that privileged populations tend to take for granted. Moreover, female hygiene products fall under the same problem. Providing pads, tampons, and other sanitary products to these populations can allow their health hygiene to improve significantly.
What it does
Our website allows anyone with internet access (the majority of the middle class or stable families) to notify us that they are able to donate their unused products. Their options will include viewing our drive locations and dropping off the items or having our team pick them up from their location which will be provided via a form on our page. Moreover, our website will be constantly updated with items and populations that are in the most need at the current time. This information will be obtained from community members that run shelters or are near a community where there are often people in need seen nearby.
How we built it
Using Wix, a website creating platform, we were able to add all our information about this organization in one easily accessible place. By starting off with a template, we changed the formatting and added additional features such as a chat to provide our users with assistance guiding the website, a contact us page to notify us immediately of any donor, and a map of drop-off locations.
Challenges we ran into
Some of the challenges we faced included coming up with ideas on how to spread our information to the public and make our organization as simple and accessible as possible. Moreover, we were faced with the challenge to create drive locations that would be easy for our donors to drop off their items to.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of creating a website that can be used on a daily basis by our donors and others seeking ways to help in a short period of time. We are also proud of our ability to identify the large but "hidden" problems many people in our community face today. We have already collected over 50 over-the-counter medications and donated them to Houston's Turning Point Shelter. Our website helped spread the word/awareness in our community and attracted people to our first drive location.
What we learned
We learned that social media and the internet can be crucial to spreading information to many people in a short period of time. While researching about other non-profit organizations that provide fundraiser opportunities and support the underprivileged community through their efforts, we realized that bases set up on social media allow for many people to access information quickly and in a more appealing way.
What's next for H&H Now
Using this initial creation of our website and drive locations, we aim to use this as a start-up for a community organization providing donors with the ability to aid needy populations in their area. Once numerous amount of donors are received, we will expand this organization to other communities farther away from our primary location with the help of other non-profit organizations willing to collaborate with us.
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