Hi my name is Isshaq. I am a rising Sophomore in Middlebury College. I am volunteering as an intern with Grassroots.org for the month of June. I am so excited about the projects I will be doing. Right now I am working on a client locator map using php/mySQL and the Google maps API. I am also looking forward to working with SEO and helping to build the volunteer site of Grassroots.org’s volunteer site.
By way of background, I grew up to in a small town in Jordan and went to high school in Canada at the Lester Pearson United World College of the Pacific. I first learned about Grassroots.org from an American classmate whose family friend is a Grassroots.org client. From that time the idea of joining the Grassroots.org team is on my mind. Until last February, I contacted Sura Hart and applied for an internship, hoping to develop my tech and professional experience while contributing to a great cause.
Besides developing websites, I enjoy getting involved in entrepreneurial work that generates profits and helps the environment or serves the community. Some projects I have been working on are managing a drying racks rental program on the Middlebury College Campus that will decrease the usage of drying racks by about 20%. I also founded a site that will help students in Middlebury to exchange books for free, the site is still undergoing improvements and will be released this August but you can see it at http://www.middbook.com.
About my academic interests: I am thinking of doing a double major in Computer Science and Economics, but I will also be taking French courses through the next semesters. I enjoy reading articles from different psychology journals, and sometimes I draw sketches of peoples' faces. In my free time, I hang out with my friends; we spend lots of time talking politics while smoking an Arabic Hooka. I also like to play soccer.
Next fall, I am going to start a Grassroots.org club on campus, that will copy the main principles of Grassroots.org and apply them to nonprofits in Addison County/Middlebury, VT and possibly also in neighboring towns. I have already received the support of from the Middlebury College ACE (Alliance of Civic Engagement). It will be a lot of work, but it will be useful because localizing what Grassroots.org does will help in making the service available to those who need it, but might not otherwise know about Grassroots.org. Also, this will allow me to keep in touch with what the Grassroots.org team is up to, even after leaving them at the end of June.
Have a nice summer!
