Three Similar Blogs

http://blogs.heraldtimesonline.com/habitat/
This is the blog for the Monroe County Habitat for Humanity and is pretty much exactly what I had in mind for the Noble County Habitat blog. This blog allows those involved in the Habitat in Monroe County (the Bloomington, IN area) a place to talk about their experiences with the program. Most of the post on the site involve the Women Build aspect of the Habitat program and one house in particular, but obviously this format could be expanded. Each blog entry covers some part of the building process, allowing viewers to see what Habitat does for the community, and what it means to the people who take part.

The blog for Habitat for Humanity Monroe County has a list of links that are related to the blog, or to Habitat. There is a link for pictures that have been taken at different build sites, as well as links to the official Habitat for Humanity Monroe County website and the national Habitat site as well. There is also a calendar that highlights which dates posts were made and allows the user the ability to click on a date and go to that specific post. I could see this calendar format being used to show upcoming events, or to highlight where a project should be on any given date. For example, on November 11th, a house should have the drywall going up, so the calendar would reflect that.

In all, the Monroe County Habitat for humanity blog is efficient and does almost exactly what I had in mind for a similar endeavor for the Noble County Habitat for Humanity. I would want to offer links to other sites, pictures of projects, and blog posts from those involved in the building. I would, however, like to add posts from the prospective homeowners if possible, and make the Noble County blog more visually appealing. The Monroe County site does what it should, but it is pretty bland looking.

http://habitatwomensbuild.blogspot.com/
This is the blog for the Grant County (WI) Women’s Build. This is an aspect of the Habitat experience in which a crew of women, with the supervision of professionals both male and female, build a Habitat home. This particular group was looking for a way to communicate with each other in a more complete and comprehensive way than email would allow, so they started a blog.

The blog posts mostly contain information about upcoming events that those women who are taking part in the Women’s Build project would need to know about. There are links where people can sign up for crews, or simply apply to be volunteers. This is an aspect that I had not considered, but would be an excellent addition to my blog. The side bar includes a schedule of which groups will be at the site on any given work day, another excellent idea. There is a link to the official Grant County Habitat site, as well as links to the profiles of those people who appear to be in charge in some way. This would allow those women interested in becoming a volunteer the opportunity to get to know a little about some of the other women already active with the program.

http://newlifenw.blogspot.com/
While this website does not deal directly with Habitat for Humanity, it does have many of the same aspects that I would like to include in my blog project. The blog is for the New Life Church in West Linn, Oregon. This blog has post that are informative, letting the parishioners know about upcoming events, cancellations, and what other congregants are doing. There are lot of pictures, which breaks up the choppiness of just text. While some of the posts are informational, some are simply motivational or inspirational. The best aspect of this blog is the extensive list of links to other blogs and websites. I feel like this offers the viewer a more complete experience, and is an aspect that I would like to add to my own project.