2024 – Worcester Community Project Center

July 7, 2024July 10, 2024 by mjbrown2

Legendary Legacies: Recommendations for Formatting a Gang Outreach Curriculum

Project Description The organization we worked with has taken its years of experience working with returning citizens and at-risk individuals and developed a seven-module educational gang outreach worker curriculum that it will launch hopefully in 2024. The program will share what Legendary Legacies has learned about effective outreach work, relationship building, cognitive behavior therapy, crisis…

June 30, 2024September 16, 2024 by Andrew Costas

WPI’s STEM Education Center: Tracking Community Engagement

Our team aimed to assist all WPI on-campus clubs and organizations, including the STEM Education Center, through the improvement of their volunteer data collection processes. WPI’s STEM Education Center Committed to empowering educators to lead relevant, integrated & inclusive STEM experiences. Student Researchers Project Goal and Objectives The main focus of our project was to…

May 22, 2024July 1, 2024 by aubadhwar

Worcester County Food Bank: Improving the Check Out Process

May 21, 2024July 2, 2024 by omperez

El Buen Samaritano: Converting EBS to Digital Client Tracking

Project Description El Buen Samaritano (EBS) is a volunteer-based, non-profit food pantry fighting food insecurity in Worcester for over three decades. The food pantry will serve anybody who needs assistance. After many years of using a pen-and-paper system to track client demographic information, EBS collaborated with a past IQP team in 2023 to explore a new data collection system using PantrySoft. This new software could enable…

March 25, 2024August 26, 2024 by webarton

Mill Swan Head Start: Designing and Implementing STEAM playground equipment

Project Description Head Start is a federally funded early education program designed to help children from low income families build a strong learning foundation. Key ways of strengthening young minds is through outdoor play and STEAM learning equipment. Our team has partnered with the Mill Swan School, a Worcester Head Start, to improve their outdoor…

March 19, 2024June 6, 2024 by ahhaner

Department of Developmental Services (DDS): Creating an Inventory System for Assistive Technology Centers (ATCs)

Project Description The Massachusetts DDS provides Assistive Technology (AT) to many people facing physical and cognitive disabilities. This AT includes anything from shower chairs to motorized wheelchairs. Servicing over 47,000 citizens across the state of Massachusetts, having a system to manage inventory has become a necessity for the program. Our project was to learn about inventory…

March 15, 2024June 6, 2024 by ejedmondson

OutstandingLife: Increasing Engagement, Outreach, and Education for an Online Community for LGBTQ Seniors

Project Description (Abstract) Elderly LGBTQ individuals struggle to find connection in today’s increasingly isolated world. Our sponsor, OutstandingLife, has created an online senior program to help address this issue. The goal of our project was to help address issues of digital literacy and engagement within their platform. We conducted board member interviews, a community member…

January 24, 2024August 7, 2024 by prhussey

WPI: Get out the Goat Vote

Project Description In the 2020 presidential election, voter turnout among those ages 18-24 was 51%, which pales in comparison to the 67% turnout for overall voters. It is critically important that the youth vote as they have the most to gain from the actions of those elected. It’s also been observed by many people that…

January 19, 2024June 6, 2024 by almiles

Habitat For Humanity: Developing an E-Commerce Strategy for Habitat ReStore

Project Description We worked with MetroWest/Greater Worcester Habitat for Humanity ReStores to create an e-commerce implementation plan. Through 9 interviews and the analysis of 11 e-commerce platforms, we evaluated e-commerce business models and marketing methods. Using this data, we developed an e-commerce implementation plan. Specifically, we recommend ReStore sell high-value collectibles and antiques on eBay,…

January 11, 2024June 6, 2024 by earothschild

Addressing Period Poverty and Enhancing Student Life

Abstract Period poverty, the lack of access to menstrual products and hygienic facilities to use them, impacts 16.9 million menstruators in the United States and often forces people to choose between menstrual products and food (Michel et al., 2022). For our project, we developed recommendations to assist State Senator Robyn Kennedy in addressing the impacts…