MyQuire.com

San Diego-based Many Hands Foundation is our Craigslist Boot Camp attendee award winner. Many Hands will receive $500 from Quire to be used to support their efforts in 2008!

Many Hands was founded by Mack and Mary Alice McKinney, who have been leading volunteer work teams to places around the world since 1969. Since 1992 the focus has been on rural villages in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa, and in 2006 to the community of Silindile.

Next year, two Many Hands teams of 16-24 people each will spend 24 days in Silindle to construct a multi-purpose annex to the church building Many Hands helped build in 2006. The community will decide the uses for the new annex which will be designed for classroom, meeting space, and even small community library uses. Volunteers will also be working to find an internet service provider willing and able to provide service to Silindile. As in past years some team members will also be teaching computer and business skills to budding entrepreneurs in the community.

Between now and then, Many Hands will be coordinating delivery of donated books to Silindile and putting together computer hardware and software packages to be delivered by the teams.

In years past, coordinating trip project information was cumbersome. Many Hands administrators in various locations used multiple emails to coordinate efforts. In reaching volunteers participating in the trips, newsletters were a static, one-way flow of information. MyQuire unites communication among the Many Hands community with a dynamic and collaborative communication flow. Many Hands administrators can get real-time feedback and MyQuire is well-suited as a toolset for the people coordinating the work that directly impacts quality of life in among Silindile's community.