This is a guest post written by New England GiveCamp co-organizer Jim O’Neil.
Last weekend, April 4-6, the New England Research and Development Center (NERD) hosted the 5th Annual New England GiveCamp. Held annually at NERD, GiveCamp teams non-profit organizations with technical, design, and marketing professionals who donate their unique expertise in the areas of website development, logo and branding creation, social media strategy, and more.
This year two dozen organizations from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, including Turn Back Time, Project Laundry List, and Transition House, were the beneficiaries of the efforts of nearly 100 volunteers who attended the 48-hour event.
The event kicked off Friday night with pizza and networking followed by an orientation and introduction session. Project teams then spread out through the conference center to stake their claims on working space (and tent space!).
Teams worked on projects throughout the day on Saturday and well in the wee hours of the morning, with as many as 30 attendees taking the “Camp” experience literally by pitching tents and setting up cots to spend the entire weekend in the conference center. On Sunday afternoon, the entire group reconvened for short presentations in which each of the teams described what they had accomplished through the weekend.
It wasn’t all work and no play though, ‘smores in the microwave and make-your-own sundaes served as late night snacks and socializing opportunities for the attendees. On Saturday night, dinner was served on the 10th and 11th floor of the conference center, providing an awesome view and photo opportunities of the Boston skyline. Some of the leftovers were donationed to both Haley House in South Boston (one of the GiveCamp NPOs) and CASPAR, a shelter on Albany Street in Cambridge.
Several sports enthusiasts stuck around to watch UConn upset Florida in the NCAA Final Four on the big screen, and in celebration of National TableTop Day, some attendees enjoyed a game of Scrabble, Clue, Settler of Catan and other board games before returning to their projects.
For those of you that missed the opportunity to participate in this year’s event, check out #negc2014 on Twitter for highlights, and be sure to follow @negivecamp and http://newenglangivecamp.org for information and details on the 2015 New England GiveCamp.
Check out the full Flickr Gallery from #negc2014 here!
Nice blog coverage by David Seah here.