smartdept. Chicago and smartdept. Grand Rapids Team Up for a Volunteer Opportunity

Back in September, Leah Bye, a Chicago smartie, and Hannah Morgan, a Grand Rapids smartie, teamed up and utilized their talents to help out the Grand Rapids community during Weekend Blitz.

Weekend Blitz, an event that unites local professionals and organizations with big hearts and a fierce need to collaborate for the good of the GR community! This is a weekend long design challenge, conceived and coordinated by AIGA and Design for Good Western Michigan*. Teams of 8-10 professionals volunteer from a wide variety of industries (design, tech, marketing, etc) are paired with ten local organizations in need of their skills and talents. A team lead works with a mentor to define the organization’s greatest need and then strategically assigns tasks to teammates. From there, the teams closely collaborate with each other and a representative from their organization throughout the weekend. Weekend Blitz reimagines the essence of design and playful thinking through the lens of an accelerated timeframe.

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* “Design for Good is a platform to build and sustain the implementation of design thinking for social change. This platform creates opportunities for designers to build their practice, their network, and their visibility. Design for Good recognizes the wide range of designers’ work and leadership in social change which benefits the world, our country and our communities.” Learn more >

 

smartdept. inc. Chicago Kicks Off Their 2015 Volunteering with a Day at Lakeview Pantry

Inspired by the Seattle team and their involvement with Food Lifeline, one of the Chicago team’s goals for 2015 was to get more involved with the community and volunteer our time to a local charitable organization.

Last Thursday marked our first group volunteer activity of the year! We spent most of our day at the Lakeview Pantry, one of the oldest food pantries in Chicago. Their mission is to eliminate hunger and poverty in the community. They do this by providing on-site food and clothing distribution as well as offering food deliveries to homebound clients. They also have a social services program that helps clients connect with other services they need to address the causes of food insecurity.

We helped the team unload deliveries from the Greater Chicago Food Depository and other grocery stores in the area. We also restocked and repacked food, organized, cleaned and washed windows! It was nice to get out of the office and work our muscles for a good cause. I think I speak for everyone when I say that my arms are just starting to recover from all the lifting. We’ll need to get in shape for next time.

We’re looking forward to more volunteer days with Lakeview Pantry in the future!

#smartdeptinspires

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