advertisement

HandsOn announces Web monitors for volunteerism site

The officers of HandsOn Suburban Chicago and local nonprofit corporation, All 7, signed a Community Partnership Agreement to provide volunteer Web moderators for All 7's social media platform, MOSAYEC.

The platform is used by youth to store and search for extracurricular activities and to provide scholarship funds for students as well.

Jerome Green, a local school Dist. 25 administrator and founder of All 7, described the deal as "amazingly synergistic - we just launched last week and we can immediately start building toward our vision of encouraging more children to get engaged in service to their communities with the help of the watchful eyes of HOSC volunteers."

HOSC assists local nonprofit organizations serving the North and Northwest suburbs with volunteer recruitment. All 7 helps middle and high school students find opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities like sports camps and conferences.

"In this deal, we feel like we have hit the 'missional' nail right on the head," said Lisa Larsen, HOSC Schools & Youth director.

The MOSAYEC platform allows middle and high school students to record their extracurricular activities and community service events. Students can save those events in their own profiles to be used later for college and scholarship applications or they can push those event cards out publicly so other students can see what's going on in their area.

Volunteers recruited through HOSC will moderate or check all photos or video assigned to those cards to make sure that nothing profane or inappropriate is being shared. Green says MOSAYEC is the safest social media around.

"I have a sixth-grader and a sophomore in high school who use this application, and I wasn't going to trust their digital experience to an algorithm. I wanted someone responsible to put their eyes on what was being shared to make sure that the content is helpful," Green said.

When a student pushes something through the site publicly, it generates a message that is forwarded to a volunteer's email. The HOSC volunteer opens the attached media and removes offensive material before it's posted publicly and sends an alert to the administrators of the web app.

The deal is equally beneficial to HOSC which in its local targeted area helps more than 200 nonprofits and schools with volunteer recruitment and youth engagement.

"We are so pleased that we are contributing to build a safe system that our students can use to record the community service hours they work with us." Both Green and Larsen agreed that over the course of the next week or two, they will work to select the first moderators.

For over 40 years, HandsOn Suburban Chicago has been inspiring, equipping and mobilizing people to volunteer and take action that builds vibrant and prosperous communities. HOSC recruits and refers 10,000 volunteers annually to over 200 plus member agency nonprofits, and provides other support to local charitable organizations, such as consultations and trainings. A nonprofit 501(c)(3) agency and part of the national HandsOn Network, HOSC service area includes 44 communities in the North and Northwest suburbs and a population of over 1.4 million residents.

• Submit 'Your News' at dailyherald.com/share.

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.