pinetcht/hackathon

PROJECT 5Care ~ We Grow Together~

link to prototype: https://ygca2021.wixsite.com/5carecollective

0. Team Information

Project Title: 5Care ~ We Grow Together~ Teammates’ names: Catherine Byen, Pine Netcharussaeng, Alison Tu, Grace Chang

The outline [300 words or less] The outline is a brief description of your project (i), its purpose (ii), and how it works (iii). Paste your outline into the textbox in the project submission page. Below is a more detailed information of each of the 3 items given above:

5Care is a website for students to share resources and fundraise for mutual aids. Our project falls under the Sustainable Earth track and we have chosen the "Beginner" overlay. We utilized Javascript, HTML, and CSS to develop our website and used WIX website creator for our website prototype. Overall, our project represents our efforts to build a more sustainable and equitable future.

The purpose is to centralize all mutual aid requests, fundraising, and recycling through selling items and art. We want to solve the problem of disorganized mutual aid requests on social media, while also addressing the problem of waste through increasing accessibility to secondhand items. By allowing students to give away items or sell items for mutual aid purposes, we hope to contribute to waste reduction while facilitating fundraising in the 5Cs for both receivers and donors.

To use the website, students can post their mutual aid requests on the “Mutual Aid” page. Community members will be able to view all the requests on our simple interface at a glance, and it can be sorted by due date to help prioritize time-sensitive requests. Students can also post their items for free (donation) or sale on the “Item” page, and put their art for sale on the “Art” page. On the receiving end, sellers can donate any desired portion of their revenue to mutual aid purposes. Our website will also allow for “ISO,” a feature for students to search for items in need. Users will be able to toggle between buy, sell, or ISO, as well as a sliding scale for price range. All these features aim to make sharing resources in the 5Cs more convenient.

We hope to engage with as much of the population as possible while also normalizing the practice of community care.

(i) Project Description Briefly discuss the content of your project. Make sure to include the following: Which Project Track you approached (only one) Which Overlays apply to your project (can be any number) How does your project relate to our theme of Tech for Good? What programming languages, tools, or other mediums did you use and how?

• Our project falls under the Sustainable Earth track and we have chosen the "Beginner" overlays. Our project aligns with the Tech for Good theme, as we have developed a comprehensive website that enables students to share resources, fundraise for mutual aid, and promote environmental sustainability by encouraging the recycling of second-hand items.
• We utilized a range of technologies to bring our vision to life. Specifically, we leveraged Javascript, HTML, and CSS to develop our website, while also utilizing WIX website creator to create our website prototype. Our website is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, with a clean and modern interface that ensures easy navigation for all users.
• Overall, our project represents a significant step forward in our efforts to build a more sustainable and equitable future. We are excited about the potential impact of our project and are committed to continuing to refine and improve our approach in the months and years to come.

(ii) Purpose What problem were you tackling with your project? Try to detail your team’s motivation, and explain why you believe your project matters. What is the future of your project and how does it make the world better, good-er?

• We are addressing a crucial problem faced by Claremont College students with our project. Currently, there is a lack of comprehensive platforms that allow students to request mutual aid and share resources. This can be attributed to several factors, including the presence of barriers that make it difficult for individuals to seek and provide mutual aid, as well as a lack of awareness about existing mutual aid requests. Area 1:
• Students who are already overburdened both physically and emotionally may want to contribute to their community, but are left to rely on platforms such as Instagram to share urgent requests. The problem? 1. The reach of a request is entirely dependent on whether or not students are able or willing to share and boost the post. 2. Mutual aid accounts have notoriously been targeted through “shadowbanning,” where users posts are prevented from showing up on other people’s feeds unless they follow them. 3. Students are forced to act as the mediator by having funds transferred to a platform such as Venmo, and must continuously update users on the progress of the request.

Area 2:

• Throughout the year, there are only a limited amount of sales where items are easily displayed for people to purchase. This means that for students who have broken items or needs that suddenly come up, their only choice is to either a) post on Buy/Sell groups on social media while hoping their request doesn’t get lost in the feed or b) look for free rooms on campuses that may be physically inaccessible and time-consuming to search through. For other students who want to live more sustainably but feel like it is too much of a hassle to gete these physical resources, they may instead opt to purchase new items---which contributes to our already large waste problem.

• Our solution is to develop a platform dedicated to mutual aid, where students can request monetary assistance, share resources, and fundraise for their respective causes. Firstly, we hope to encourage widespread usage and and clear visibility to reduce the burden that current community members face in having their request met in time. Secondly, students in need of

• By providing such a platform, we aim to create a positive economic system that enables students to access aid and support with ease. Additionally, our platform will include a feature that allows students to sell second-hand items and make some income, thereby promoting environmental sustainability and generating potential mutual aid funds. Our long-term vision is to create an interactive and dynamic system that facilitates the redistribution of wealth within the Claremont College ecosystem while also fostering environmental sustainability through the recycling of second-hand items.

• In summary, our project aims to improve the economic circulation and environmental health of the community. We believe that by addressing these critical issues, we can make a positive impact on the world and create a better future for all.

• (iii) How it works Specify what someone can do with your project or how someone would interact with it. If your team made an app or website, how should the user navigate it? If your team worked on data science/data analysis, how did you parse the data and what tools did you use to draw meaningful conclusions? If you made visualizations, what do those tell the viewer?

• We created a website where users can 1) request/view mutual aid, 2) request/share resources, and 3) sell/buy art.

• 1. request/view mutual aid
  • * To request mutual aid, the user will go to the mutual aid page, and click the “request aid” button on the top right. This will direct them to a form where they can fill out the title, request description, due date, amount of aid, and the flower that they want to use to represent their post. Once they submit the form, the website will automatically generate a post for them on the mutual aid site.
  • * To view existing mutual aid requests, the user will go to the mutual aid page, where there will see a panel of flowers of which each represents a mutual aid request post. Alternatively, the user can also click on the search bar on the top left corner to search for specific posts. The user will then click on the flower, which will lead to a popup modal with the title and description of the post, how much aid was fundraised, and how much the user wants to contribute. After the user fills out the contribution amount, the website will send the money directly to the mutual aid requester.
• 2. request/share resources
  • * To request resources, the user will go to the items page, and click the “request/share” button. This will direct them to a form where they can fill out the item that they are looking for, the price range, location, and contact info. Once they submit the form, the website will automatically generate a post for them on the items site.
  • * To share resources, the user will go to the items page, and click on the aforementioned “request/share” button. This will direct them to a form where they can fill out the item description, price range, location, and contact info. Once they submit the form, the website will automatically generate a post for them on the items site. If a sale successfully happens, the seller will be directed to a page where they will be able to choose how much profit they would like to donate to a mutual aid of their choice, and also how much profit they would like to keep for themselves.
  • <View Request/Share Resources>
    • To view the requested and shared resources, the user will go to the items page, where there will be posts of all the items that are requested or shared. Users will be able to filter the site using different categories such as ISO (requested resources), Sale (shared resources), and three different item categories (Clothes, Books, Dorm Essentials). From there, users can click on each post, which will create a popup that has a detailed description of each item.
  • * To check out items from the shared resources post, users will click on the respective post, which will lead them to the check out page. The checkout page will have the description of the item and the seller contact info, and users will be able to conduct payments. Users will also be able to make suggestions on which mutual aid that they will like the seller to donate to..
• 3. sell/buy art
  • * To sell art, users will create a post at the arts page by filling out a similar form in the shared resources page, which asks for the item picture, description, pick-up location, contact information, and also the price range. For the price range, sellers will be able to specify a minimum price and/or suggested prices. Once a successful sale is conducted, the seller will be directed to a page where they will be able to choose how much profit they would like to donate to a mutual aid of their choice, and also how much profit they would like to keep for themselves.
  • * To buy art, users will go to the arts page, where there are multiple posts of art on sale. Users will then click on the art that they are interested in purchasing, which will bring them to a popup page with the item description, the seller contact info, and users will be able to conduct payments here. Users will also be able to make suggestions on which mutual aid that they will like the seller to donate to.

Ethics

Our product aims to help 5C students in need both financially and non-financially. We also want to help the earth through recycling by reselling second hand items for mutual aid. Students and the Earth would ideally benefit from our product. Because the target group for our website is 5C students, we are leaving out people in the larger community. As a result, we might be excluding people outside of the 5Cs who really need the funds we could have raised. A potential harmful use of this website is raising funds for illegitimate purposes. Students who donated to these counterfeit causes could be donating to something they did not sign up for. However, assessing legitimacy before approving mutual aid posts might end up harming people in need; it would prolong the approval process, and urgent funds might not be allocated in time. As a result, we must rely on trust in the 5C community, which has both the potential of being beneficial but also harmful at the same time.