RiverWorks Community Development Organization

Riverworks is going to be a great ministry opportunity in the Rockford/Greenfield area, there are many low income families in the area who need some assistance in many areas. The people involved in Riverworks are caring, loving people who love to help those in need and spread the love of Christ to those we meet and help. We could really use the web site help to give us a boost.

RiverWorks is reaching out to many different people in the community and the part I am involved in is the Kids-n-Horses program. This summer we began the program where kids can come and spend some time getting to know horses, riding and just spending time in an environment where they can be themselves. We want to create a "refuge" type of place where people can be accepted for who they are; something often not realized in many school situations. The kids that have come out this past year have become very attached and have even stated, "it's the best event" yet! Our biggest hurdle is getting the word out to people about what we do and being able to coordinate schedules. Also, RiverWorks is reaching out to people who may be in situations that can be very difficult emotionally and physically and the more they can learn on their own via the website, the more comfortable they will be to contact RiverWorks. A professional and informative website is crucial to the impact RiverWorks can have!

Our Rockford/Greenfield community is primarily rural and local sources for the services RiverWorks will provide are limited to area residents. Like many communities, a sizable number of our residents have been negatively impacted by the economic downturn and we have more in need of free/low cost services than ever before. The launch of RiverWorks in our community will provide many under-served residents assistance during their time of need.

A strong online presence will facilitate community awareness and assist residents in maximizing use of services. Additionally, a well organized and effective website will provide a credible presentation to donors and other partners, and support organizational goals to be effecient with resources.

I am the President of the local Rockford Lions Club, an organization primarily focused on suppoorting vision programs and bringing a commitment of community service. We have been working closely with the RiverWorks Foundation in development of a local food shelf that will be supporting the needs of the Rockford / Greenfield community. The people at RiverWorks have displayed a true sense of "Community Service" in developing a program that always has merit - providing food for families in need. This entire initiative is being driven on fundraising efforts and volunteer support, and the community is rallying behind their efforts.

This is where The Overnight WEBSITE Challenge can provide a powerful tool for RiverWorks and our community on two fronts. The first one would surround fundraising. The funding today is coming the old fashioned way - phone calls, handing out mailers and knocking on doors. While this is garnering support, we are in 2010, and the tools available to attract financial support extend beyond our physical reach. This is a project that requires funding on two fronts - development of the facility, and the continued replenishment of the food shelves. That creates a continual search for funding on a continual basis. The second front that your group would impact is creating an interactive tool for the local people in need of support from a food shelf. Many people in our community may not know about the services that will be available to them in the near future, and some may hesitiate to actually use it. Your group could create a website would be inviting to the user, and is easy for visitors to navigate when there. While many people in need may lack personal home computers, there are community sites available to them via libraries and local city halls - there is always a way for people to access information via the new age of technology.

This is a great opportunity for experts in your web design field to support a service intiative for our local community. Thanks for your consideration.

RiverWorks, is "working". HARD! There are many folks who have given limitless time, service, talent and money to getting RiverWorks running. It is extremely impressive seeing the many different people of our community coming together for a shared and noble purpose: helping those in need on so many levels.

Having an efficient tool such as a terrific website, just increases the potential for more to get involved and serve, and more to be served! Thanks for considering RiverWorks!

RiverWorks was started with just an idea to help our small community and has blossomed into an effort that has brought much needed purpose to our area. This food shelf project has the potential to help in so many ways. Not only will it help families in need but it will serve to educate and bring together many people all working for a common cause. It is an exciting venture for all involved and has already brought together a community that has few opportunities to work together. I believe we could be even stronger especially in the schools if we would be lucky enough to improve our online resources.

We are so excited to be a part of Riverworks and to reach out to our community in a way that nobody has been able to before. There are so many people involved with such great ideas that we are sure to see the people in our community grow in faith and hope for a better today and tomorrow. It would be such a blessing to have a fabulous website as the front door for people to enter through to a world of hope.

I am a volunteer for Riverworks on a task force designed to open a brand new Food Shelf in our community. I am excited to get our children and their families involved in our community through food drives in the schools as well as the community. I am also looking forward to developing a community garden and farmers market to promote nutrition and healthy lifestyles for all. Thanks to Riverworks and the people volunteering their time we have a wonderful community serving our community.

Thank you for considering Riverworks as well as for volunteering your time (especially the part where you sacrifice your sleep!) to help people out. As my kids would say... You Rock!

My wife and I are volunteers for RiverWorks and on a very cold Saturday morning in December (as all Saturday mornings in December are in MN) we packed up all the kids and drove around the town delivering flyers to inform our community members about Riverworks. Now don't get me wrong, we had a wonderful time driving 2 mph and stopping at every mailbox to insert flyers. The kids behaved pretty well and they didn't fight too much over whose turn it was to open the window and stick the flyer in :) However, I know that many more people would be reached more effectively and efficiently by having a website designed by clever and wonderful people such as yourself. Thanks!

I have been with Riverworks from close to the beginning, and I have never been so excited and so amazed at how quickly an idea can grow into reality. We have had our focus change and crystallize from what we thought the community needed into what the community desperately needs. The volunteers that have come forward are a true indication of the needs of our community and it is gratifying and humbling to see such passion from such a diverse group of people.
In today's world where people of all economics have, or have access to, the internet, a fresh, interactive website is vital. Keeping information current and easy to find can be the difference between hope and despair, and being such a new non-profit, our resources are going into other areas of immediate need. We, and our community would certainly benefit from the help that you could provide us.
Thank you

Community & being beyond-neighborly are so important especially in a rural area. Our area is pretty much a drive-through town for city workers. Some residents live in neighborhoods and some on lonely dirt roads with, BUT we have people with heart who love and want to care for the hurting in the rural areas and make positive solutions in our area. A food shelf is being opened to help out people in need and it's been so wonderful to see people from different "neighborhoods" come together for the same goal and enjoying working together in the process. Especially with tight times for everyone, giving and thinking about others instead of our own immediate self-gratification is a great thing to be able to be a part of ... and teach the next generation. Our future.

THANK YOU for your willingness to work together to creatively use your talents to help RiverWorks get the front door exposure that we want to show others!

First and foremost, thank you SO much for your consideration of RiverWorks Community Development Organization for the Overnight Website Challenge! RiverWorks would be absolutely delighted to be one of the recipients of the Overnight Website Challenge! A high quality, user-friendly, and visually pleasing website would mean so much to our organization and community.

My family first moved to the Rockford area about 2 1/2 years ago. Prior to that, we had lived about 15 minutes closer to Minneapolis, which was of course more convenient, but with it came higher housing prices and much larger class sizes for our children. We decided to move to the small town of Rockford because the city was quaint, we were excited to raise our children in a smaller town where they could go to school with their friends year after year, and not only that, great potential seemed to exist in this little community set just outside the major metro suburbs.

I first heard about the RiverWorks Community Development Organization at our local chamber of commerce meeting in the spring of 2009. I immediately sensed that this was going to be GREAT for the Rockford/Greenfield area.

In November 2009, I joined the RiverWorks food shelf task force. I signed up to be on the food drive committee, and doors started opening right away. My son's first grade teacher made a call for any service project ideas for the month of December. I sent her a few ideas for service projects, one of them being a food drive for RiverWorks Food Shelf that is going to be opening in Rockford in March 2010. A few weeks later, I heard back from the teacher. She said she had talked to the elementary school principal about the new food shelf, and they decided that they would like to do an all-school food drive during the month of January 2010. We began making plans, and are currently in the midst of a large all-school food drive. This week, January 4-8, 2010, a poster contest was held for kindergarten through fifth grader. We had more than 60 entries, with entries from every grade level. One winner was chosen from each grade level, and many posters will be framed and displayed at the new RiverWorks Food Shelf!! A four-week food drive will be held between January 11 and February 5, 2010. There are four different theme weeks for the food drive, including meal from a box/can week, breakfast week, around the house week, and Italian week. Our school-wide goal is a total of ~5,900 items for the food drive!! We are already well on our way to meeting that goal, and the food drive hasn't even started yet! When we dropped off boxes in each classroom yesterday, we found piles of food already waiting in many of the classrooms.

It has been SUCH a delight to work with the food shelf task force, teachers more than willing to help in any way they can with the food drive, and children in the school eagerly waiting to bring cans and boxes of food for the new food shelf in our community. I have been so pleased with the way community members have reached out to volunteer as soon as they hear about this great opportunity to serve the people of our cities. Not only will this food shelf make a difference for people who are in great need of food to put on their table in these difficult economic times, but it will also bring the people of this community together in a way that has never been seen before.

As I sit back and think about it all, it seems funny that there is not even one grocery store in Greenfield or Rockford, but this non-profit, together with the great people in our communities, have all come together to provide people with a basic necessity of FOOD. What more could we ask for? What a great example for our children. What a great opportunity for service to our community. What a great place to go to meet your most basic of needs, to find a friendly face waiting to listen and help you choose food some food for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's breakfast before a long day at work or school.

Although this organization is new, I commit to you that it will do great WORKS in this community, and will be able to reach so many more people if we have a great website!!! Please consider us as one of the recipients of the Overnight Website Challenge. It would mean the world to us.