Ask HN: Are you looking for pro bono work? London, UK

[3eto]

There are a few threads here asking about pro bono work, would you be interested in helping us offer free showers for the homeless?

We see the Web increasingly becoming a homeless first port of call for information on shelters, day centres, hostels, and available services also to keep in touch with friends and family, Facebook is often mentioned.

What we need? If you are homeless, a website so you can find us, and see where the showers are. If you are a donor, a payment gateway and real time visualisation of our finances, see where every penny is going.

We are a team of 11 volunteers from different backgrounds, non-profit, finance, science, media, for instance, I volunteer as a mentor to get people back into work and at a winter night shelter. It's a chance to use your skills.

If you’d like to help, it’d be great if you could join our next meeting 9th July in Soho to discuss the project as a whole and meet the team. We already have UX and design covered, and a sponsor for the first 100 showers, so you are joining a solid team.

Please reach me at beto@sillyideas.co.uk

[10dpd]

"silly ideas is the portfolio of a brazilian advertising creative.

a really silly idea would be to make an integrated campaign out of a digital thought, so don’t be silly."

So tell us more about your agency's involvement in this. Is this a play for free publicity?

[3eto → 10dpd]

I can appreciate the suspicion. No agency involvement whatsoever. This is an idea evolved from conversations with people without a home at the shelter I was volunteering in the winter. Our shelter was only open on Mondays [1] and the shower was a big hit, but the shelter on Tuesdays didn’t have showers. When I spoke with my girlfriend, who was volunteering at the Big Issue Invest [2] at the time, about offering the shower at our place on Tuesdays, during that conversation it became clear that my idea wasn’t sustainable nor scalable, and now we are 11 people committed to getting this done. If you’re in London and want to meet me or come to our next meeting to confirm our legitimacy, you’re more than welcome. Is this helpful?

[1] http://www.carisislington.org/phdi/p1.nsf/supppages/1381?ope... [2] http://bigissueinvest.com