Year 2000 Project Volunteers

This is a list of people who have participated as online volunteers with the Project in 2000 (other than the VV Project program advisors), and their list of accomplishments with our Project to date (this includes accomplishments from past years).

The online volunteer accomplishments listed below include only those tasks completed on behalf of the VV Project or coordinated by the Project for another program at the Dana Center or a collaborating organization. Many volunteers listed here also completed online assignments for other nonprofit organizations, and most have also volunteered onsite for various groups.

We are proud to have had so many of our online volunteers from years past continuing on with us! And we are also re-energized by the talents brought to us by so many new volunteers this year.

 
Debbie Almeida [JDA0777@aol.com]
Tiverton, Rhode Island
Debbie is participating as an online mentor for an Austin, Texas fourth grade class, and also is one of the supervisors of all exchanges between students and mentors. Her many other contributions to the VV Project include making suggestions for activities for online mentors and mentees; evaluating Web sites relating to accounting, looking for resources that might be included in Finding Technical Assistance Volunteers; and researching resources to be used on the TENET Web site to help teachers and educators with volunteer management and community engagement for and by students (TENET is another project by the Dana Center. She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1998.

 
JB Borkowski [jbbinaustx@email.msn.com]
Austin, Texas
JB took on various web page design projects for the VV Project, including researching Peace Game resources and developing a web page for another Dana Center program.

 
Carol Champagne [carol@io.com]
Buda, Texas
Made suggestions for activities for online mentors and mentees to engage in; prepared web pages for a school-to-careers project by the Dana Center; edited an issue of VIRTUAL VERVE before it was published; and researched online discussion groups for volunteers or those relating to volunteerism.

 
Brian Chan [Brian4@Bigfoot.com]
Austin, Texas
Researched web sites with information about state-wide and city-wide mentoring programs in the U.S.; reviewed online databases of volunteer opportunities to determine which ones had virtual volunteering tasks available; evaluated and updated resources on various VV Project pages; and helped identify online resources for and examples of volunteers in police departments, for possible inclusion in the index of online volunteer management resources and in other VV Project pages. Brian has volunteered with the Project since 1999.

 
Sharon Cheong [SCP36@aol.com]
Murray Hill, New Jersey
Prepared a new online form for the Service Leader Volunteer Management Resources site, helped prepare several new Web pages for the Austin chapter of DOVIA, converted e-mail survey responses to .HTML so the VV Project could share results with others (this was a MASSIVE assignment), and has undertaken various and numerous online research projects, generating new material for various pages on the VV Project Web site. She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
Nicole Cox [ncox10021@yahoo.com]
New York, NY
Researched national conferences focused on community/family involvement in schools; and researched various lawsuits and legal rulings that relate to online activities by both for-profit companies and individuals, to help the VV Project explore liability issues that might affect nonprofit organization's involvement of online volunteers. She has also created many pages for a new Web site for another Dana Center program and pages for TxServe; and launched her own web site to help potential online volunteers connect with resources to help them provide online service.

 
Kevin Croke [kevinfc@voicenet.com]
Harleysville, Pennsylvania
Kevin researched online tours that might be appropriate for online mentors and youth to experience together online, and then compiled these with another volunteer's research into a web page for our site; created a page of corporate volunteerism online resources and another page of "unofficial" volunteer web sites; created a new web page from another volunteer's research: Tips for and Examples of Intergenerational Programs For Senior Volunteers and Youth; researched college and university-level courses in volunteer management; and updated various other pages on our site with new information.

 
Craig Daniels [nonprofitumbrella.org]
Concord, New Hampshire
Craig began volunteering online with the Project in October, to learn how to manage online volunteers himself for his own organization, which will help small nonprofits and community groups create and maintain web sites.

 
Marla Erwin [tawanda@austin.rr.com]
Austin, Texas
A member of Herdomain.Org, Marla created .eps versions of the VV Project logo, for use in printed publications and .pdf forms.

 
Jenny Feng [jenfeng@prodigy.net]
West Palm Beach, Florida
Inspired by her volunteering with the VV Project, Jenny has created her own web site to help teenagers in West Palm Beach, Florida to connect with volunteer resources. She's also undertaken numerous online research assignments for the VV Project, including reviewing federal government-sponsored web sites for kids, to find online activities youth and mentors could engage in together; gathering contact information for national mentoring agencies; researching discussion groups for community involvement in schools; researching the Web sites of six top U.S. 2000 Presidential campaigns to see if they involved online volunteers; researching online resources relating to school-to-career programs for another Dana Center program; updating our guide to Finding News Articles on a Particular Subject via the Internet; researching online information about computer viruses for our Handbook for Online Volunteers; researching contact information for state volunteerism/community service offices; creating the initial list of sites used as our Guide to Volunteering Outside the U.S.; looking for news stories regarding supposed lacks in the number of skilled workers emerging from high school and college in the U.S.; compiling and comparing agency usage statistics in January 1999 for the three largest online volunteer opportunity databases (VolunteerMatch, ServeNet and Action Without Borders); helping format new surveys to use on the VV Project Web site to gather information from agencies on how they use the Internet as part of volunteer management; and helping convert e-mailed survey responses to .HTML so we could share results with others. She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
Kristian Gallagher [Visit Kristian's web site]
Austin, Texas
A professional web designer, Kristian most recently contributed several suggestions for our page on managing web volunteers. She has forwarded information she has found in the course of her professional work relating to web accessibility for people with disabilities to the VV Project, forwarded VV Project and other volunteer information to various professional associates to solicit their participation and advice, and promoted the VV Project and its various activities to others. She's volunteered with us since 1999.

 
Venkat Ganti [vganti1@hotmail.com]
Dallas, Texas
Venkat lurked on our web site for a year before jumping in as an online volunteer, helping to upgrade our forms to include automated functions and mandatory fields, and creating a way for people to subscribe to VIRTUAL VERVE, our monthly e-mail newsletter, via the web (a particularly time-consuming process, configuring two unrelated systems -- our web host and our list processer). He continues to trouble-shoot and update these forms for the Project on an on-going basis. He also has gathered contact information on organizations using the Internet to recruit and involve online volunteers in March 2000, for use in a new survey by the Project; and created new pages for another Dana Center program. Venkat impressed the VV Project so much that when a paid contract position became available to build an online web site for an online mentoring program, we hired him!

 
Greg Griffiths [greg@efc.be]
Neath, West Glam, Wales
Created web pages for both the VV Project and Knowbility.Org; gathered contact information for organizations sponsoring various online mentoring resources; helped research the availability of online volunteer applications (forms) and online volunteer reporting forms; his work was incorporated into our Virtual Volunteering Resources for Volunteer Managers. Greg also proofread several pages on the Web site, and helped map the Web site, which in June 1998 consisted of more than 150 files. He's volunteered with the VV Project since 1998.

 
Betzaida Hachfeld [xchild@roadrunner.com]
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Made suggestions for activities for online mentors and mentees; gathered a list of online stock trading sites and information on how youth could use these to learn about investments and finances; made suggestions for URLs for "unofficial" web sites by former Peace Corps volunteers, for possible inclusion in a new page on the VV Project site; gathered contact information for key organizers of a conference the VV Project is interested in; through the VV Project; helped a nonprofit music festival organized via the Internet to gather online information supporting music programs in schools, and to find online information about musicians-in-schools programs, and programs that use music to teach K-12 subjects (math, science, literature, etc; searched for and gathered information on the various nonprofit organizations and nonprofit-based programs with a focus on helping nonprofits use technology effectively; researched web sites for national organizations that sponsor mentoring programs and initiatives; researched articles and news about the "Open Source" movement, to find resources for the Handbook for Online Volunteers; and gathered online information regarding mandatory community service programs, including court-ordered community service and school-related programs (this information will be used in the Dana Center's index of volunteer management resources); and passes on anything she finds online that relates to the VV Project and other related programs. She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
Assaad Hamadeh [ahamadeh@yahoo.com]
Austin, Texas
A new volunteer, Assaad has already updated several web pages in support of the VV Project, including pages on our index of volunteer management resources.

 
Asha Hegde-Niezgoda [asha@austin.rr.com]
Austin, Texas
Asha joined the VV Project volunteer ranks very recently, and has already updated several pages on our index of volunteer management resources.

 
Philippa Hindle [philippa@well.com]
San Francisco, California
Philippa is participating as an online mentor for an Austin, Texas fourth grade class. In 1999, with coordination assistance from the VV Project, she helped the Austin-area United Way create material, including an online form, for its Web site, and introduced the organization to the "joys" of virtual volunteering for the first time. In 1998, she helped compile new information for the Project's ever-expanding Online Resources for Volunteer Managers.

 
Lisa Hinely [Lisa_M._Hinely@bulk.org]
Austin, Texas
A volunteer manager and nonprofit professional, Lisa plays a lead role in maintaining the DOVIA Web site as an online volunteer, working with the VV Project. For the VV Project itself, Lisa continually passes on various helpful information and resources, and has taken on many online research assignments, such as indexing human resources/personnel management online information that could be helpful to volunteer managers; reviewing arts groups that involve volunteers online, particularly in the development of artwork, poetry, a play, etc. (some of her research was incorporated into our activity suggestions for online mentors) and identifying state Workforce Development Council information available on the Web for the entire U.S., in support of another project at the Dana Center. She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1998.

 
Sharon Hooker [sharon4157@yahoo.com]
Bowie, Maryland
Researched contact information for selected online Hispanic professional associations (some of her research was incorporated into our recruitment suggestions; undertook several online research projects relating to school-to-career programs for another Dana Center program; reviewed our guidelines for online safety from a parent's perspective; and gathered contact information for online mentoring programs. She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
William Hookway [WHook@aol.com]
Worcester, Massachusetts
Gathered contact information for state offices for people with disabilities, and compiled information on not-for-profit organizations that have e-mail addresses in the Greater Austin metropolitan area, to solicit their involvement in AIR-Austin: Accessibility Internet Rally, an event that involved the VV Project. He's volunteered with the VV Project since 1998.

 
Asif Khan [asif.khan@excite.com]
Ridgewood, New Jersey
A new volunteer, Asif recently helped the VV Project by reviewing some of our web pages and searching for both outdated links and the correct information for outdated data.

 
Harry Knobler [hknobler@bcpl.net]
Baltimore, Maryland
Has undertaken many, many online research tasks (more than any volunteer with us to date) that have lead to new pages on the VV Project web site and helped the Project in its outreach efforts; and undertaken various research projects that have similarly benefitted other programs at the Dana Center, for TxServe, for Knowbility.org, and for a nonprofit music festival organized via the Internet. His many contributions include researching organizations that offer volunteers wilderness-related opportunities; compiling a list of volunteer management related conferences in 2001; offering his own evaluation of all of the various online sites that provide information on volunteering opportunities; researching the availability of books on volunteering, student mentoring and community service activities on major online bookseller web sites; compiling a list of volunteer associations of professionals (much of which was incorporated in to How to Recruit Online Volunteers); researching online resources relating to school-to-careers programs; revising a list of sample online volunteer applications; researching e-mail pen pal programs; gathering e-mail contact information for organizations that manage volunteers working in the criminal justice or prison system (so we could find out if any were involving online volunteers as well); finding contact information for many, many groups, companies and organizations we had only partial information for; researched places in Texas to donate used computers or for community groups to receive refurbished computers (for TxServe); reviewing several sections of the VV Project site to make sure links were still valid and to update URL information; identifying particular kinds of businesses and press outlets for a particularly geographic area; and sharing information on how these projects helped him learn to use various features of his computer hardware and software, as well as the Internet in general. Much of his research helps with the Project's outreach efforts and in materials to help volunteer managers work with volunteers with disabilities via the Internet. He also frequently shares his insights about online assignments themselves, and how they benefitted him personally and professionally. Harry is also participating as an online mentor for an Austin, Texas fourth grade class. He's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
Matthew Koenn [mkoenn@hotmail.com]
Merritt Island, Florida
Created many, many web pages for the VV Project, Knowbility.Org, AmeriCorps for Community Engagement and Education Program (ACEE) and the TENET web site; offered suggestions for activities for online mentors and mentees to engage in; researched online tours that might be appropriate for online mentors and youth to experience together online; researched online discussion groups relating to volunteerism and nonprofit management; researched school-to-career resources on nonprofit museum web sites for another Dana Center program and created web pages for this same program; researched web sites that help answer why an organization should involve volunteers?; helped compile a list of national and state conferences in Y2000 relating to volunteer management, volunteerism and online communities; researched articles for possible inclusion on our web site; researched articles and news about the "Open Source" movement for the Handbook for Online Volunteers; gathered information on "celebrity" foundations; reviewed some of the Web sites listed on our index of agencies involving online volunteers, to make sure our information was still accurate; and gathered contact information for all agencies who had posted opportunities to the VolunteerMatch database in January 1999, and all volunteers who had e-mailed interest in these assignments during a selected week in January 1999, so that the Project could survey them about their virtual volunteering experiences. He's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
Peter Kwan (Kwan Wai Bong) [cs_kwb@stu.ust.hk]
Hong Kong
Has helped several times with web page creation, including pages for TxServe, and formatting task descriptions into web pages for the VV Project. He also researched online resources relating to school-to-career programs for another Dana Center program, and has performed many, many other online searches for the VV Project to gather new information for our Web site. He's volunteered with the VV Project since 1998.

 
Chun Mao [cmao@gfbank.com]
Austin, Texas
A new volunteer, Chun offered advice on a FileMaker Pro database the Project uses to manage information about our own online volunteers.

 
Maria Martinez-Pascua [pascua@tid.es]
Madrid, Spain
Maria has undertaken many, many assignments for the VV Project and contributed a lot of time and energy on our behalf. Her many online accomplishments include: researching web sites in Spanish that are focused on recruiting volunteers or promoting volunteerism; creating a Web page for the VV site in Spanish and a page highlighting outdoor volunteering activities supporting parks and wilderness areas in the U.S. (among numerous others); researching various agency online support materials and guidebooks for volunteers, so that the Project could provide examples of how various agencies use the Internet to train and support volunteers; gathering contact information on organizations using the Internet to recruit and involve online volunteers in March 2000 (for a survey later conducted by the VV Project); offering feedback on numerous online volunteering activities, campaigns and materials by the VV Project or other organizations; researching online information about "Disability Mentoring Day 2000", sponsored by the White House; researching online information about volunteer-related groups at the University of Texas at Austin (to help in our local outreach efforts); providing information on freeware and resources to help users surf the web anonymously and helping to create links to font and color guides for online volunteers providing web development for our Handbook for Online Volunteers; and researching web sites to help people with disabilities connect with job opportunities, for Knowbility, and used these same resources and additional research to help employers learn how to recruit and accommodate people with disabilities, to find material to adapt for VV Project resources to help volunteer managers recruit and involve people with disabilities. Maria also participated as an online mentor for an Austin, Texas fourth grade class, and helped convert broadcast e-mail messages to mentors to .HTML so we could share these messages as examples to other organizations.

 
Erin McDermott [emcdermott@hotmail.com]
Scotia, Nebraska
Among her MANY accomplishments for the VV Project: researched contact information for state mentoring partnerships; made suggestions for activities for online mentors and mentees; and researched resources for others' suggestions; researched available domain names and who owned domain names relating to volunteer management and online volunteer service; researched and compiled online resources relating to school-to-career programs for another Dana Center program; reviewed and updated some of the links on the VV Project site; and compiled and summarized resources to help people find paid internships. She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
Paul Miller [http://members.aol.com/millerpr/conifer2.htm]
Riverside, California
Researched company information for sponsors of a nonprofit music festival, for inclusion in the festivals e-mail newsletter; made suggestions for updates to the Handbook for Online Volunteers, provided a lead on a volunteer organization that might want to collaborate with the Project; created a web page for the ServiceLeader.Org index of online volunteer management resources; and, working through the VV Project, helped update Knowbility's Gallery of Accessibility. He's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
Gina Ng [LilBitzy1@aol.com]
Brooklyn, New York
Made suggestions for activities for online mentors and mentees to engage in. In her first year of volunteering with the Project, while recuperating from knee surgery, Gina helped research stories about online romances (for an upcoming article on our web site) and tracked down URLs for various Austin organizations for the DOVIA Web site, a program the VV Project is involved with.

 
Radhika Oruganti [oradhika@worldnet.att.net]
Melbourne, Florida
Radhika has created a new page for legal resources and issues relating to volunteerism; created a new page for our index of online volunteer management resources; researched virtual tours that would be appropriate for youth, as part of our suggested online activities for youth and mentors to engage in together; and created a web page that displayed a graphic representation of web site traffic that compared selected weeks in the last three years.

 
Ajey Patil [ajey_patil@hotmail.com]
College Park, Maryland
Through the VV Project, created a new web page for Knowbility.Org to help employers hire and accommodate adults with disabilities as employees. In 1998, he helped create a new index of organizations using the VolunteerMatch beta database of virtual opportunities. She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
Cindy Petricko [wheelz@tdi.net]
Monroe, Michigan
Cindy went through our Handbook for Online Volunteers looking for typos and broken links. She then took on the massive project of preparing the Virtual Volunteering FAQs for posting to appropriate newsgroups.

 
Angel Gabriel Polonia [APol675848@aol.com]
Queens, New York
Most recently, Angel researched how many web sites were linking to every Dana Center-affiliated web site (that's more than 20 web sites). She also has compiled a list of web sites specifically for teens, as part of our online safety research; researched places in Texas to donate used computers or for community groups to receive refurbished computers (for TxServe); converted text documents to .HTML so we could share them via our VV Project archive, submitted artwork and layout ideas for the Project Web site, and has undertaken various and numerous online research projects, generating new material for various pages on the VV Project Web site. She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
Mark Pratt [markpratt@uswest.net]
Papillion, Nebraska
Through the VV Project, Mark has built several web pages for another Dana Center program and for TxServe. He's also shared information about his experiences volunteering online with other organizations.

 
Roopa Rao [roopar@hotmail.com]
Piscataway, New Jersey
Converted text documents (surveys) to .HTML so we can share them via our VV Project archive; and researched intergenerational volunteering programs, for materials we'll incorporate into our online mentoring resources. Through the Project, Roopa also created web pages for TxServe and for another Dana Center program; compiled contact information for arts organizations in the St. Louis, Missouri region and created a web page for a nonprofit music festival collaborating with the VV Project.

 
Gabriele Schuster
Sunnyvale, California
Summarized responses from a recent e-mail survey so we could share results with others; inputted volunteer opportunities for an Austin, Texas elementary school into VolunteerMatch and other online databases to recruit volunteers; created web pages for another Dana Center program and for TxServe, including researching and compiling online resources relating to school-to-career programs; researched intergenerational volunteering programs, for materials we'll incorporate into our online mentoring resources; reviewed web sites that allow teens to chat together online, to determine and access their online safety practices; compared other organization's online safety guidelines with the VV Project's online safety information; researched alternative weekly papers in major Texas markets, created an online form, helped compile a list of top ISPs, so the VV Project could pursue partnerships with these companies; provided feedback about the VV Project site and its resources; helped a nonprofit music festival organized via the Internet by gathering information for its web site; and has served as the Project's "News Hound," looking for news stories relating to innovative involvement of volunteers, corporate volunteerism, volunteerism in schools, and online volunteering. She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
Malini Vedula [mvedula@hotmail.com]
Plano, Texas
A new volunteers with the VV Project, Malini substantually updated our Guide to Volunteering Outside the U.S., and has helped convert text to web pages for the Project.

 
Rosalie Wayper [rosalie@r3software.com]
Leander, Texas
Researched various International agency web sites and their online support materials and guidebooks for volunteers, so that the Project could provide examples of how various agencies use the Internet to train and support volunteers.

 
Jeff Wiedner [jeffwiedner@yahoo.com]
Reston, Virginia
Compiled information on how volunteer managers (as well as parents and teachers) can prevent youth volunteers from frequenting "hate" sites via the Internet; researched information about the similarities in fears and promises about the railroad to those of the Internet; compiled newsgroups and lists relating to specific professional groups to help an agency working the VV Project recruit online mentors; through the VV Project, helped a music festival organized via the Internet to update its press/outreach list with contact information for music-related magazines; and continues to frequently advise the VV Project manager on outreach for the program to broader audiences. His MANY contributions from 1998 include tracking down what Web sites link to the VV Project Web site, providing information on how to use Hot Bot to do this in the future, researching state offices of volunteerism and community service, and beta-testing the Project's temporary delivery system of virtual opportunities. Jeff also developed part of the Handbook for Online Volunteers, writing chapters on using online search engines, particularly to find news articles. Jeff is a marketing professional, and has provided the Project with advice on how to approach the media and researched appropriate technology-related publications to approach in the future. He's volunteered with the VV Project since 1998.

 
Claire Willis [visit Claire's Web site]
East Point, Georgia
Created a new online form for our site; helped input several volunteer opportunities for a local elementary school working with the Virtual Volunteering Project into the VolunteerMatch database; and has taken on many online research projects, including gathering online resources relating to school-to-career programs for another Dana Center program, researching "anti-volunteerism" information online (sites that offer opinions opposed to volunteerism) from across the political spectrum, and identifying online discussion groups for computer users with disabilities (this information was shared with knowbility.org for its web site as well). She's volunteered with the VV Project since 1999.

 
 

 
1999 Volunteers

Back to Project Volunteers Index page

Back to Project Team Page

• Virtual Volunteering Resources
  How to find and involve volunteers working from home or work computers, online resources for volunteer managers, advice for individuals who want to volunteer virtually, etc. These pages are updated and added to each month.

• How Your Agency Can Utilize the Virtual Volunteering Project
  Tips on how to use this Web site, information about our offline services, and how we can help you introduce or expand virtual volunteering in your agency.

• Virtual Volunteering Project home page

If you do use Virtual Volunteering Project materials in your own workshop or trainings, or republish materials in your own publications, please let us know, so that we can track how this information is disseminated.

If you are interested in more up-to-date information about virtual volunteering, view the Virtual Volunteering Wiki.