Com 223 Project Proposal:

What is your group number? *

Group: 17

What is your team name? *

GroupWE

What is your Thursday 5pm meeting location? *

2nd floor of Milner Library at the long tables located behind the computers

Who is your Liaison (first and last name)? *

Amina Jinadu

Who is your Recorder (first and last name)? *

Joi Adams

Who is your Historian (first and last name)? *

Megan Bridgers

Who is your Webmaster (first and last name)? *

Mariah Jones

Who is your Treasurer 1 (first and last name)? *

Christina Michaels

Who is your Treasurer 2 (first and last name)? *

Najawa Stith

Who is your 7th team member and what role will they fill? *

Lou Cavalier - Flex Position

Who is your 8th team member and what role will they fill? *

Luciana Mautino - Flex Position

What platform will you use for your team portfolio / website? Please provide a URL (it's ok if there isn't anything there yet). *

Google docs - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XvSMh8EdZNqJnOaOmSllgJtb6cY2W5TWdEyk1fgIvIM/edit?usp=sharing

Wix

What are your team's rules? *

1) Be respectful of time, don't be late. And if you are running late contact someone in the group.

2) Have everything done the night before something is due. (No last minute)

3)Be responsible for your required part when given. This way everyone has equal contribution!

4)Respect everyone's opinions even if they don't agree with you. Come together as a group and communicate and find a way everyone can be satisfied.

5)If you don't like an idea, make sure you provide another option/idea/solution and don't be pessimistic.

6) Be open to suggestions and constructive criticism. Ask for help or opinions with an open mind.

7)In correlation with rule 2-Put together a solid timeline and stick to it.

8)Be cognizant of how to give efficient negative feedback without offending your group mates, but giving them an understanding of things they could improve on.
 

Rank the organizations in order of preference (Home Sweet Home Mission, Pet Central Helps, Baby Fold, School Street Food Pantry, Mid Central Community Action, Habitat for Humanity (ISU chapter ONLY)). If your preference isn't listed, please explain what it is and why you want to do that 1= first choice. *

1 = Pet Central Helps

2 = School Street Food Pantry

3 = Baby Fold

4 =Habitat for Humanity

5 = Mid-central community action

6 = Home sweet Home mission

 

Present, in your own words, an overview of your first choice organization - who is the community they serve and what services do they provide? (300-500 words. DO NOT copy paste directly from their site). *

Pet Central Helps is a no kill animal rescue facility located in Normal, IL that services the McLean County and the surrounding areas. They provide education for the community in order to keep pets healthy and keep them and their owners together. One of their main visions is that financial circumstances aren’t a reason as to why people shouldn’t be able to have pets. They have a great mission and strive to educate the community on proper education for caring for their own animals. There are applications for volunteers in the community to donate their time and care for the animals. People with special needs can also apply to volunteer and help with the animals. They host an annual Puppy Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday for the community to come and play with the animals. Also for events, they have a PetSmart adoption every Saturday located at their store for adoptions. They are currently under construction at the moment and all of their animals are in foster care during this process. Our funds could possibly go towards this and helping this process. They have a “Wishlist Wednesday” where they put up a list of materials they need and could use in their office. These materials include dog food, cat food, canned dog or cat food, leashes/collars, toys, or just basic office supplies.

 

Address a problem or social issue your first choice organization deals with. Where do they need help? Here you will probably need to do some research to help explain the issue (make sure you cite your sources). This should be about 500-700 words. * 

 

Our first-choice organization is Pet Central Helps. Pet Central Helps was founded by former shelter Director and founder at Wish Bone Canine Rescue, Lisa K. Kitchens. Their constant advocacy has helped the change within McLean County Animal Control and eliminated the last gas chamber in Illinois. Lisa Kitchens has put together a future that will resolve the barriers to the welfare and health of local pets and their people, with an overall goal of keeping the animals safe. Pet Central Helps comes together within the community to help save and rescue animals from harmful environments and harmful people. Pet Central Helps values three E’s: Education, Encourage, and Enable: these underlying values helps support their overall vision. Their vision believes that pets and people are always meant to be together regardless of financial circumstances like adoption fees. We as Group 17 and GroupWe plan to combat the issue of the rising number of animals in shelters that endure a lack of funding. By our group collaborating with Pet Central Helps we could not only raise awareness and advocacy for the dogs in the shelter, but we can also raise money for food, shelter and other expenses the dogs may need. Pet Central Helps also values the relationship the animals can form and helps create a bond with their future forever home.  Most animals in shelters find themselves sleeping on the cold concrete in need of attention, love, and companionship. “There are about 13,600 community animal shelters across the U.S” (ASPCA.org). Unfortunately, that’s still not enough shelters to combat the overcrowding that many endure. A sheltered animal is a scared animal and often makes them even less adoptable. A scared animal often won’t act like themselves. The importance of donating and raising awareness about Pet Central is bigger than the cause itself. By donating monetary and nonmonetary items you can give a dog another meal, bedding, and shelter for another day. According to dosomething.org, “Homeless animals outnumber homeless people 5 to 1”. When looking at the bigger picture, that statistic is alarming. Animals have feelings and emotion like humans and can sense when they are neglected. By raising awareness and shedding the light on how important this organization is we would be grateful to even put a dent into the change that needs to be done.

 

What would your team like to do to help combat this problem/issue? Here is where you connect your plan to fulfilling a need of the organization. *

Pet Central Helps focuses on assuring that all of the animals within the shelter are healthy and fed in order to find the animals forever homes. Through fundraising and earning 800$, we will be providing the non-profit foundation the funds needed for the animal’s vet bills, food costs, and other items that are needed.

 

What are your three SMART goals? (First goal is $100/person x # of people in your group. The other two are up to you). * (Lou’s)

1.     To raise $100 per person in the group

2.     To get donations off of their wish list

3.     To raise awareness for adoption

 

What is your plan for achieving these goals? *

Our plan for achieving these goals is to stay on task, make sure everyone is contributing, and that everyone is actively fulfilling their positions. We have an agenda made before every meeting. As long as everyone does what they are suppose to do, and comes to meetings prepared we should not have a problem completing the project.

 

What is your *rough* timeline for achieving these goals? *

Our *rough* timeline for achieving these goals is to finish the project in time to get extra credit. The extra credit due date is April 10th. We plan to follow our agenda specifically to achieve our goals before the deadlines.

 

What potential problems do you anticipate? *

Potential problems we anticipate stem from lack of preparation or contribution from groupmates. Another problem relating to this would be the organization of group mates with knowing deadlines and where all of our resources are located to work on. Lastly with groupmates, forming cliques within the group is a concern as it could prevent productive workflow and everyone being on the same page. Raising enough funds is also of concern and making sure we reach a large enough audience to raise the funds/awareness. When it comes to the organization, there is a concern with them being reliable and easy to contact so we can stay on track with our timeline.

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What is your fallback plan? What is your “point of no return” date for implementing the fallback plan? (ex: “if we have not achieved 50% of our goal by midterm, we will switch to Plan B.”). *

 

As of right now, we have decided that we will raise the money by fundraising. We are not sure the way in which we will raise yet, but if we are unable to reach the money by the middle of March, so around March 13, we will go with our fallback plan and begin volunteering.

 

Please list any team members who did NOT participate in creating your project proposal, or contributed very little. A quick explanation of what they did/didn't do would be helpful. This isn't to get anyone in trouble but to verify that everyone in the group has had a chance to comment on the plan you're turning in (and if they didn't, why not). *

 

Najawa Stith- I was at the meeting for the discussion portion, which was after most of the work was already done. So I didn’t contribute to the work that was done in this spreadsheet though I did participate in the discussion.