Loyola Retreat House

This one time, at GiveCamp, I kissed a chair and I liked it… Ahem! Cleveland GiveCamp is a place where we code for charity, and this year I was the Project Manager for Loyola Retreat House. Loyola is a Christian non-profit who provides a relaxing atmosphere for people to retreat from their hectic life, if only for a moment. They offer party, and sleeping accommodations, and they have a world-class chef to cater to your culinary desires. The problem was that their old website was maintained with Frontpage 2003. Needless to say, it was everything short of world-class. My team worked on it’s redesign.

Loyola Retreat House had a few simple needs. They needed a way to easily manage their website without using the discontinued Frontpage 2003. People could donate through the old website, but it was a bit clumsy, so my team worked together to simplify the process. Hopefully, more people will donate through the new system. Visitors may now book their stay online, and pay for their event, and so much more.

Cleveland GiveCamp 2016

While GiveCamp is all about helping nonprofits to have a new amazing website, there’s a lot more that goes on at GiveCamp. The food is always amazing! I literally created a mountain of food on my plate that was 2 inches thick. It made me think back to the times when I was living with my parents as a kid. My mom would say, “Rick… put some of that back.” Well, I chowed down on good cow many times like that, and spent time with new friends.

I’m going to miss my friends at Cleveland GiveCamp when I move to Silicon Valley, but I do plan on joining the local GiveCamp when I move. I just wish there were more hackathons in which I could partake. Facebook offers that opportunity, and if I work for Facebook, then I’m certainly going to enjoy their hackathons.