For eight weeks after first lady Michelle Obama challenged GW students to complete 100,000 hours of community service, there was no official way to track those hours. Now, there is VolunteerMatch.
The University will launch VolunteerMatch, an online service that will allow members of the community to electronically log service hours they have amassed over the course of the semester on Monday.
Titi Williams-Davies, special projects manager for Student and Academic Support Services, said the University signed a contract with VolunteerMatch 30 days ago to create a custom-designed Web site for the GW community to log hours.
Williams-Davies said this is an “unprecedented” amount of time for the organization to create a Web site, as VolunteerMatch – a nonprofit that creates specialized Web sites for companies and nonprofits worldwide to connect to community service opportunities – usually needs 60 to 90 days to build the technology.
“The University knew the importance of this and accelerated it,” said Michael Akin, executive director of government, international and community relations. “The fact that they built a system for us in 30 days is pretty remarkable.”
The VolunteerMatch technology allows students to log their community service hours online, as well as connect with community service opportunities across the city, similar to the GWork system.
Every member of the GW community will receive a profile that will be activated Monday, allowing them to log the community service hours they have amassed over the year. Students traditionally contribute about 60,000 hours per year, and the Office of Community Service reported the GW community has logged 19,025 hours of service to date. That number does not include hours not done directly through OCS.
To teach GW community members how to use the system, tutorials will be held on the Office of Community Service’s Web site at serve.gwu.edu.
“Tracking and reporting hours will be much easier now that GW’s VolunteerMatch system is up and running,” University President Steven Knapp said in a news release. “I am confident that this new system will help us meet the First Lady’s challenge.”
