Over the first weekend in May, I attended my third New England GiveCamp, an annual event where developers, designers, and project managers donate their skills to help out not-for-profits in need.
This year I worked on the website of Turn Back Time, a farm in central Massachusetts providing nature experiences for children. Turn Back Time came into GiveCamp with a standard WordPress twentyeleven theme and left very satisfied with a customized theme and logo.
My fellow Oomph team member, Steven Word, contributed to the non-profit Catching Joy, the project I helped out with the previous two GiveCamps.
In order to rebuild an entire site in a weekend, sleep was only a suggestion. Friday’s planning and initial coding went from 6pm until 1am. Saturday’s coding frenzy started at 9am and I didn’t call it quits until 3:30am the following morning, only to start the final push on Sunday at 9am. This was the norm for a lot of the teams, and some of the volunteers even brought tents and sleeping bags.
It was an exhausting but rewarding weekend, and I’m eager to do it again next year!
By Jim Reevior
Web Developer
Jim joined Oomph in September 2011, bringing with him seventeen years of experience in the IT industry. Jim has worked for large and small companies across the country, from a fledgling Internet company in New York City to a health insurance provider in San Francisco.