Michigan Give Camp in Ann Arbor 2009

Last weekend was another powerful, moving experience at the second Give Camp in Ann Arbor. I blogged from the event on Friday and mentioned some of the cool new things at this year's Give Camp (showers, a popup camper, a source control server, and live streaming), but that doesn't even begin to summarize the event. Patrick Steele put together a fabulous video that gives you the flavor of a Give Camp:

Just under 60 developers and designers volunteered onsite in Ann Arbor, plus an additional 12 people volunteered remotely from Knoxville, TN. The Knoxville satellite was led by Nathan Blevins, and that fabulous team of people served 2 nonprofits by themselves! In addition, the Columbus Give Camp was held the same weekend; I'll post separately about them. There was a wonderful sense of community between the three camps, aided by Twitter and the webcams, which kept us in constant contact.

Although there were fewer developer volunteers this year, they were able to help more nonprofits! Give Camp did more with less, like everyone else in this economy. The volunteers helped 18 nonprofit organizations to create websites and applications. I was incredibly impressed with our nonprofits this year; the majority of them were present throughout the weekend, checking in regularly or working beside the volunteers. As a result, they were happier with the results. The nonprofits that participated this year are:

All About Animals Rescue
Closer to Home Animal Advocates
Community & Home Supports
Eisenhower Dance Ensemble
Great Sauk Trail Council, Boy Scouts of America
Interfaith Hospitality Network at Alpha House
Latino Family Services
Legacy Land Conservancy
Lend A Helping Hand
Leslie Science and Nature Center
Motivity
Paula Ratchford Ministries
People’s IALAC Community Center
Resource Genesee
Sisters of Mary
Southeast Michigan Regional Energy Office
Starting Over Airedale Rescue
Workplace Research Foundation

We sorely needed designers again this year, but one amazing designer (the great Ken Arbogast-Wilson) went from project to project helping out, and created some truly beautiful sites.

We also had people fly in for the Give Camp! Barry Stahl wanted to throw a Give Camp in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, and flew all the way to Michigan to experience one. We also had great support from Verio, who sent us the fabulous Matt Lagrotte from Florida to make sure that their free hosting (for 6 months) was set up properly.

Thanks to the amazing sponsors: Domino's Pizza (who provided not one but two dinners for us: their new American Legends line of pizzas and oven-baked sandwiches...yum yum!), Washtenaw Community College, Microsoft, Verio, TechSmith, SRT Solutions, Devexpress, Telerik, O'Reilly, Wrox, H&H Consulting, Zen, Red Gate, Bottle Docker, Balsamiq, Dunkin' Donuts, Meijer, and Jet Brains.

Washtenaw Community College was amazingly accommodating again and is already booked for next year! We will be in a different building on campus, a wide-open space in the same place as the showers. Save the date: July 16-18, 2010 is Michigan Give Camp in Ann Arbor 2010!