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By Ruth Wood-Steed
Exciting things are happening at three St. Louis area non-profits,
thanks to philanthropically-minded organizations. The United
Way, Central Institute for the Deaf (CID) and Missouri History
Museum at Forest Park are experiencing metamorphoses that would
have been impossible without help from the Missouri Foundation
for Health (MFH), Maritz and Emerson respectively. Still other
unnamed area non-profits enjoy updated Web sites and assistance
with network administration and e-commerce from The Newberry
Group.
When accessing social services, you have to make several calls
before reaching the correct agency—right? No more! Thanks to
a MFH grant, the United Way of Greater St. Louis initiates its
2-1-1 service this summer, transforming the way to research
and connect to needed services. Simply by dialing 2-1-1 or visiting
www.211missouri.org, you can find the help you need much more
efficiently. Services range from food, clothing and help with
utility payments; to physical and mental health resources; to
employment support or support for the elderly and persons with
disabilities; to support for children, youths and families.
You also can donate time, money or other resources through 2-1-1.
The service is available seven days a week, 24 hours per day
and saves time and frustration for the needy, donors and agencies
alike.
The St. Louis United Way is spearheading the push, which incorporates
all United Ways of Missouri except Kansas City, whose 2-1-1
program already serves its 16-county service area. The new program
eventually will cover the remainder of Missouri, in rural, urban
and suburban areas alike. Then Missouri will join the other
states whose programs Gary Dollar, president and CEO of St.
Louis’ United Way, says currently serve nearly 70 percent of
the United States.
Dollar says, “This is going to be a way for people to conveniently
and efficiently get connected to the help they need.” Also according
to Dollar, data collected as part of this program will identify
gaps in services available, “help(ing) us be even more efficient
and effective in planning and delivering services—and that’s
what we do: provide help to people in need.”
While the United Way’s 2-1-1 service helps a wide spectrum of
people across Missouri, the Central Institute for the Deaf (CID)
has a much narrower, but equally important focus: giving deaf
and hearing-impaired children from birth to age 12 basic educational
skills and preparing them to enter a hearing world. With financial
and volunteer help from Maritz and its IT staff, CID’s teachers,
students, parents and staff are greatly expanding their resources.
A $10,000 grant from Maritz, plus a former teacher’s bequest,
allowed CID to replace slow, five-year-old computers with new,
higher performance ones and also provide front-projection “smart
boards” (interactive white boards) for its classrooms. Additionally,
Maritz’ IT staff volunteers transferred data from old to new
computers, deployed new computers, scrubbed old computers’ hard
drives so CID could give them to students’ families, and trained
staff members. Maritz volunteers also serve on CID’s technology
committee, helping plan future technology usage, investments
and training.
Students now plug laptops into classroom and computer lab docking
stations. This, plus the new smart boards, which allow teachers
to remain at the front of the classroom and face students while
using computers, instead of requiring students to stand behind
them to look at the monitor, has opened a world of opportunities.
Because students can now hear the teacher, read her lips and
also see the screen, computers and even on-line curricula can
be used within academic lessons, instead of restricting computer
use to the computer lab. “It’s really, in many ways, a revolution
in the way we are teaching our children,” says Robin Feder,
CID’s executive director.
Both CID and Maritz have benefited from the technology upgrade.
CID has a great technology partner, and as Rita McCoy, Maritz’
director, IT says: “This has been the most rewarding experience
from a volunteer perspective that I’ve ever had. Very seldom
do we use IT in our volunteer work. Also, to know that we provided
tools that are going to assist (children with impaired hearing)
in that learning experience was just incredible!”
Much like CID and Maritz, The Missouri History Museum at Forest
Park and IT staff from Emerson are turning the museum’s world
upside down. In fact, with Emerson volunteers’ help, the museum
is in essence reinventing itself, and possibly serving as a
catalyst for revolutionizing the entire museum world.
Together, they have analyzed museum functions and identified
information technology that will better serve its constituents.
Emerson Vice President and Chief Information Officer Steve Hassell
says: “Working with the History Museum has been almost therapeutic,
because they’ve been so eager to both learn and adopt what we’re
recommending in order to produce the kind of IT structure and
processes they will need to achieve their goals. It’s really
exciting to see it come together!” The year-long planning process
is designed to catapult the concept of a museum as a place for
static displays to what Dr. Robert R. Archibald, president of
the Missouri Historical Society, says, “… is a museum that exists
in a virtual world that’s community-created.”
This virtual museum will contain both physical collections and
on-line collections accessible via personal computers anywhere,
anytime, complete with background information and links to related
sites. What’s really exciting is that collections will become
interactive—not only to view, but also to supplement. Physical
and virtual visitors can add reminiscences, photographs, documents,
videos and audios, thus enriching a collection. Physical visitors
can use a cell phone or iPod to further research an image or
object. In this virtual world, the museum also will be able
to track visitors’ interests, so it can customize offerings
and notify patrons of upcoming events.
Dr. Archibald hopes to have planning adequately in place to
initiate a capital campaign to fund the technological advancements
by year end. Look for more information over the next few months!
Brenda Newberry, president and chief executive of The Newberry
Group, spoke fairly accurately for all of the assisting organizations
when she said: “No matter what size of company one has, there
are opportunities to give in various ways. Our philosophy is
that one must sow first before reaping the harvest.” By these
criteria, not only The Newberry Group, but also the Missouri
Foundation for Health, Maritz and Emerson are generous with
their sowing, to the great benefit of area non-profits.
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Be
Part of the Exhibition!
The
Missouri History Museum in Forest Park wants your stories!
What are your memories of air flight in St. Louis? Have
you thrilled to the great air shows at the riverfront?
Experienced a nightmare flight? Or piloted model planes?
If you have a story to tell related to air flight in St.
Louis, you can become part of the Missouri History Museum’s
current exhibition, Flight City: St. Louis Takes to the
Air.
For the first time at the Missouri History Museum, you
can actually contribute to the exhibition, not just view
it. The museum has placed special Take Flight! kiosks
in the exhibition in which you can record the story of
how you have felt the impact of the aviation industry.
The museum will select some stories for the exhibition,
and keep all for their archives. After some editing for
topic and length, they will play selected videos, along
with other pre-recorded interviews, to expand the aviation
history conversation.
The museum is in Forest Park at Lindell and DeBaliviere,
with hours from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. daily, and until
8 p.m. on Tuesdays. Until Labor Day, however, you can
visit the museum until 6 p.m. and until 8 p.m. on Tuesdays.
Flight City: St. Louis Takes to the Air admission is $5
for adults; $4 for seniors and students; $2 for children
aged 6 to 12; and free for children ages five and younger.
However, the exhibition is free on Tuesdays, so make your
Tuesday plans soon.
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