100 Hours of Power is a project by the AmeriCorps program at the American Red Cross of Greater Grand Rapids. The project took place from May 13th through May 20th during National AmeriCorps Week and focused on literacy. Due to the large amount of volunteers needed, it became necessary to create an easy to follow website that potential volunteers could use to learn about the project and sign up for positions as a volunteer. I was charged with creating this website.
The 100 Hours of Power website would facilitate several facets of the project. It would be the main source of information about the project for the public. It would be the gateway for involvement in the project, allowing the public to register as a volunteer. Finally, it would allow registered volunteers
The 100 Hours of Power website facilitated several facets of the project. From the public's point of view, it hosted information detailing what 100 Hours of Power is and what was required to become involved (see image 3). It provided the ability for the public to register as a volunteer and help out (see image 4). Finally, it had an interface used by registered volunteers to manage which of the various shifts (blocks of time) they wanted to be active in (see image 2).
On the administrative side, the website was used by AmeriCorps to manage and coordinate their volunteers. By allowing the volunteers to choose what shifts they wanted to participate in, AmeriCorps no longer had to take the time to contact and manage volunteers themselves.
100 Hours of Power used the free content management framework Drupal as its core. Drupal contains the foundation of content and user management that 100 Hours of Power easily extended. The features specific to 100 Hours of Power, such as volunteer registration and shift management, was implemented through a custom crafted Drupal module. The single module provided all of the necessary additional functionality needed by AmeriCorps.
100hoursofpower.com launched on Monday, April 2nd, 2007. National AmeriCorps Week was from May 13th through May 20th and 100 Hours of Power was successful in meeting their goal for donated books.
Technologies: Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Drupal (including these modules: Custom 100 HoP module, JavaScript Tools, and Gallery), XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and Gallery 2