Habitat for Humanity - LINC Final Report | ENG 199, Exams of Educational Psychology

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Habitat for Humanity

ENG 199 – LINC

Habitat for Humanity

Pick-up Project Team

May 10, 2003

Matt Ahrens

Mike Denmon

Mandy Field

Jennifer Mozdren

Mehul Patel

Ian Tan

LINC Final Report Acknowledgments We would like to thank the LINC course and our instructors, Bruce Litchfield and Ann Finnegan, for giving us the opportunity to gain valuable experience with project management and teamwork. We would also like to thank Habitat for Humanity and our project partners, Kassie Nudo and Judy Bryan, for all their help in our project. We would also like to thank our Project Advisors, Parul Choudhary and John O’Brien, for offering input and helping guide us along the right path during the extent of our project.

LINC Final Report

• Problem Statement Table of Contents
• Project Goals and Scope
• Alternatives Considered
• Timetable
• Work Completed
  • Safety Issues Analysis of Safety, Environmental, and Ethical Issues
  • Environmental Issues
  • Ethical Issues
  • Impact on Project Partner
• Backup Plan
• Budget
• Work Remaining
• Conclusion
• Appendix A : Contact List
• Appendix B: Calling Script
• Appendix C: Response Letter
• Appendix D: Example Newsletter
• Appendix E: Donation Refusal Card

LINC Final Report Problem Statement Habitat for Humanity (HFH) is well known for providing low-income families with affordable and respectable housing. Through this program, HFH hopes to strengthen communities, which is its overarching mission. As parts of its mission, HFH has locally began work to create a new home improvement store, called Homeworks, in downtown Champaign to provide individuals with high quality, low cost building supplies, as well as to raise funds, which HFH may use in their endeavors. However, such a large task carries many issues for HFH to address in order to efficiently run the store. The purpose of our team is to work with the store manager, Kassie Nudo, to help HFH resolve some of these issues; more specifically, our project involves handling the logistics of transporting the donated materials to Homeworks. There are many goods that can be donated to the Homeworks and HFH needs an efficient way to pick the goods up from the community and deliver them safely to the warehouse. Project Goals and Scope In order to estimate the size of the problem, we first reviewed work done by previous LINC groups. At the conclusion of the fall 2002 semester, a previous LINC group identified organizations willing to make donations to HFH Home Improvement Store opening in May

2003. While this solved numerous issues regarding the internal operation of the new retail store, it did not (nor was it intended to) address several pending problems. Our project seeks to focus on the following objectives or goals:  1) Acquiring transportation (and the associated drivers) to pick-up items that have been donated but cannot be dropped off at the Home Improvement Store  2) Creating a system to schedule donations around the availability of the transportation

LINC Final Report the donors on the needs of the Store will keep them more aware of how they can support HFH. In addition, HFH can demonstrate their appreciation of the donors’ generosity in a manner such as by recognizing them in a periodic newsletter to the community or in the local newspapers. Alternatives Considered Like any situation there are multiple solutions to any problem. Thus with our project we considered many possibilities. We first examined the potential to merely have donors drop off material themselves. Though this would greatly alleviate HFH’s responsibility, many potential donations would be lost due to the time and effort the donors would have to expend. A second possibility was for HFH to purchase their own box truck, which is a truck used to haul large items for moving. This would be a great convenience to the store, however it would be very costly and would bring up issues like having a licensed and insured driver on staff. After rejecting our previous ideas we determined that acquiring a trucking company to donate use of a box truck would be the best solution. Although, this would bring more difficulty with respect to coordinating pick-ups, it would save HFH a great deal of money and still allow them a great deal of flexibility. Timeline and Milestones In accomplishing our tasks, we set specific milestones to keep us accountable with our objectives. They were as follows:  February 20th : Create contact list and calling script  March 6th : Call potential donors  March 20th : Follow-up positive leads

LINC Final Report  April 17th : Make agreement between donor and HFH (Kassie Nudo)  April 27th : Create donation refusal card and newsletter It is important to note that the list of milestones are the main ones and do not include minor tasks that we completed. Also, the main change made in the timetable during the semester was the addition of the April 27th^ deadline to complete the donation refusal card and the newsletter. Those items were added later in the semester as we began to focus on future projects. Work Completed Contact List and Calling Script Over the past four months, our team has made some significant advancements on the project. In order to accomplish the first goal of identifying transportation to pick up donated materials, we took the following steps. First, we compiled a list of potential donors that could provide a box truck for HFH’s use in picking up donated materials. A member of our team used paper resources, such as the Yellow Pages, to develop a contact list of over 30 potential donors. (Appendix A). The targeted donors were either vehicle rental companies or furniture stores. We chose these companies or stores as targets because we felt they would be willing to help HFH because of their resources and because of their position as a community commerce member. The second step was to create a “calling script” that our team used to contact the possible donors. (Appendix B). The script stated why the team was contacting the potential donor, the purpose of HFH and the Store, and the benefits the donor would receive in exchange for offering a box truck. The third and final step was to divide the contact numbers for potential donors amongst our team members, and call each of the donors using the calling script.

LINC Final Report  Federal/O’Byrne Moving & Storage (FOMS), has donated the one-time use of one of their trucks to HFH. FOMS also donated the employment of a driver and the payment for gas. Potential Agreements  North American Van Lines has agreed to donate the use of one of their trucks, but no specific agreement has been made to date.  Ewing-Lovett Transfer Co. has also agreed to donate the use of one of their trucks, but no specific agreements have not been made to date. Preliminary Work Since establishing and maintaining relationship with material donors is crucially important, we have moved forward with our format of creating a newsletter that will inform donors about HFH’s needs and any new information about the Homeworks store. Analysis of Safety, Environmental, and Ethical Issues Safety Issues Injury Risk The first safety issue we considered is the risk of injury when moving donated materials must be examined. In order to prevent injuries, an adequate number of workers must be present both when materials are picked up from donors and when materials are delivered to the store. A preliminary step to a resolution include scheduling pick-ups around the availability of the donated trucks, and also at times when adequate personnel is present to unload the donations into the store. Furthermore, volunteers should be equipped with appropriate protection, such as

LINC Final Report masks or gloves, if donations are unusually dirty or dusty. On occasion, moving equipment, such as forklifts, dollies, wheelbarrows, etc., may also be necessary. In these cases, however, HFH may need to incur additional costs to acquire the machinery. Donor Insurance Another prevalent safety concern at this time involves insurance for the donors’ moving trucks. The majority of companies contacted were unable to assist our project due to insurance complications. Currently, only one of the donors has agreed to supply a driver, and he will be covered under the company’s own insurance. This should eliminate the insurance concerns in this case, but this issue may need to be addressed with other donors who are unable to supply a driver. Additionally, the HFH volunteer assisting the driver in pick-ups must also be covered by insurance. Fortunately, HFH provides some coverage to all its volunteers to protect against difficulties such as these. Environmental Issues Physical Environment While our direct effects upon the environment are small, the physical environment can affect our project in the future. For example, inclimate weather can prevent scheduled pick-ups from proceeding or have other undesirable effects. In particular, rain may damage donations left in the open that are anticipating pickup. To protect against such cases, HFH may wish to examine weather reports a few days in advance, and advise potential donors to keep their goods under cover. If necessary, pickups may also be canceled/rescheduled in a similar fashion. More abstractly, the condition of the surrounding area may affect the availability of transportation. As

LINC Final Report Internal Environment Our internal environment is composed of our project partner, the project group, and individual group members. The project partner is concerned with the overarching effects of our project on the mission of HFH. Similarly, we are focused on helping the organization within its and our own resource constraints. Ultimately, all these objectives filter down to affecting how individual group members manage themselves when working to complete assigned tasks. Ethical Issues This project faces almost no crucial ethical problems. However, there are a few aspects that must still be considered. The single major ethical issue involves ensuring that the truck donated is only used for picking up donations (an not for any other side purposes). Some sort of semi- formal or even formal agreement between donors and HFH might be necessary to guarantee this. Creating a network with the local community and establishing relationships with donors is not only important to the success of our project, but it is also morally commendable. Taking an active part in helping the community is the responsibility and the ethical obligation of local residents. Thus, this project indirectly attempts to bring people to a realization that helping HFH should not be solely for convenience, but also to make a difference in the community. Impact on Project Partner The main impact that our project will have on our project partner is to bridge the gap between the community and the new warehouse that HFH has acquired. There is a need for donations from the community to stock the store, and our project will help expedite the donation process. Also,

LINC Final Report we are creating another opportunity for the community to support HFH. Community members may make personal contributions to the HFH store, choose to help pick up items from donors (after being properly trained), or help unload materials into the store (among many other options). For commercial donors, a pick-up service run by HFH alleviates transportation burdens and prevents them from wasting the valuable time of their employees. As a result, this may encourage companies to donate larger amounts of merchandise or items previously unconsidered for donation. Backup Plan A need for a backup plan to our solution would arise if the truck donors decide they do not wish to donate their services any longer by discontinuing the donated use of their trucks, if there was an increase in donated goods, or if there was a decrease in donated goods. In the first case, there are a few possible backup plans. The first would be to limit the amount of donations that could be accepted. If no truck space is available to get goods to the warehouse, Habitat could accept donations on items for which they have specific needs. For example, if the warehouse has a abundant supply of windows but a limited supply of doors and truck resources are scarce, then HFH could be willing to reject donations of windows in order to save truck space to pick up doors that are donated. Obviously, HFH could request that the specific donor drop off the goods if possible. This alternative would likely mean that fewer goods would be able to be donated, which is a drawback. A second backup plan would be to get new truck donors. We were extensive in our search for truck drivers, but not exhaustive. It would be possible to recall certain companies to explain the situation and try to get them to donate the use of a box truck.

LINC Final Report Work Remaining There are two major items that are in development and would be exciting projects for future groups working with Habitat for Humanity. The first item is a donor newsletter that would be sent monthly to all community donors of goods to the warehouse---commercial vendors or individual residents. The purpose of the newsletter would be to inform the donors regarding the latest news about the warehouse and how they best can be involved. Possible ideas for content of the newsletter include:  What days trucks will be in the area to pick up donated goods (if that information is readily known by Habitat).  List of items that are in need at the warehouse.  A “thank you” section where past community donors of trucks or goods for the warehouse would be acknowledged and thanked for their time and donations One drawback of the newsletter is that it would incur specific costs for printing and distribution. The specific budget would be determined by a future LINC group. We created a basic template for the newsletter (see Appendix D ) and reviewed it with Kassie Nudo. She was positive regarding the idea and plans to investigate the implementation of the monthly newsletter, hopefully with the help of a future LINC team. A second item to be developed is a website for donors to schedule donation pick-ups. A website would be more convenient for people in the community to access in order to find out when HFH is making donation pick-ups and the currents needs of Homeworks. Then, if the goods that they wanted to donate passed the test for usability, they would be allowed to schedule themselves on the pick-up schedule. This would also make the job easier for the Habitat staff member who has

LINC Final Report to schedule all the pick-up times and the truck times and routes. The staff member could simply be in charge of monitoring donations made via phone calls and the website. The staff member would also have to maintain the website by updating the pick-up times and the list of needed donations. In the long run, this system would save time and be a more efficient way of scheduling pick-up times between community individuals, vendors and the HFH trucks. Creating the website may require start-up and implementation costs. Additionally, there are a few small ideas that future groups may choose to incorporate into their project. We have already composed a donation refusal card that can be left with unusable donations, however it needs further revision regarding specific content issues. A second possible avenue for future groups is to make a gift that could be given to material or truck donors. One suggestion is a magnetic sign that would be fastened to the side of the donated box truck. The sign could read something like, “Bringing Your Donations to Homeworks. Supporter of Habitat for Humanity.” Hopefully, a future LINC team can further investigate the feasibility of these ideas. Conclusion The major outcome of our work was our ability to help bridge the gap between the new Habitat warehouse and those in the community who want to donate goods and support HFH. The problem we faced in the beginning of the project was how to get goods from the community to the warehouse. We believe we solved it by providing a means by getting trucks donated from the community to work with Habitat to get the goods from the community to the warehouse. Through our work, we have learned many things about our community, about our project

LINC Final Report Carter's Furniture 367-4066 Inventory; call again Carter's Interiors 352-2229 Inventory; call again, attn: Jeannie Furniture Warehouse 352-0080 Owner gone; call again Furniture World of Rantoul 892-4815 No; Limited resources LA-Z-Boy 351-8052 No; Limited resources Furniture World of Rantoul 892-4815 No; Limited resources LA-Z-Boy 351-8052 No; Limited resources Lebeda Mattress Factory 378-4000 No Prairie Gardens 356-6532 No, Liability reasons Rhodes Furniture 351-6060 No, contracts truck with EL&J Silver Deere LTD 239-2322 No; Limited resources, only vans Techline 352-5570 No; Only use vans This Is It Furniture Discount 351-5102 Yes, Contact after April 15th Woodie Alans 239-0986 No

LINC Final Report APPENDIX B Calling Script – Potential Box Truck Donors Hi, I am a student at U of I and I am calling on behalf of the Habitat for Humanity Home Improvement Store located at 40 E. University Ave. in downtown Champaign. How are you today? This coming April, Habit for Humanity will open up their Home Improvement Store, but they need help from businesses like yourselves. We need to find someone who is willing to donate a box truck, a couple of times a year, to help Habit pick-up donated materials. This box truck will be used to pick up any donated material from the community to be sold in the Home Improvement Store or used in Habit for Humanity Homes. Not only would you be helping the community and be able to write-off your donation, but you will receive free advertising as volunteers are picking-up the donated items in your truck. HFH Improvement Store is a non-for-profit retail business, which recycles donated items for use in building homes for low-income families. Or, these donated items will be sold at a huge discount to the public to help pay for some of the building expenses. APPENDIX C