Community Service in Oberlin Has a New Home: A Wiki on the World Wide Web

If the Oberlin community seems a little cleaner, more connected and more active in the coming months, don't be surprised. Observing that online convenience is best for service networking, the Bonner Center for Service and Learning has embraced one of the Internet's fastest growing mediums: the wiki.

Whether you want to dive into an America Reads program, become a Citizen Scientist, or get down to earth with a conservation effort, the website has the information you need.

"We envision that the OberlinServes wiki will be the online campus-wide clearinghouse for all community service programs and projects in Lorain County. We hope that through this resource more Oberlin College students, faculty and staff will be involved in community service as well," said Donna Russell, Bonner Scholars program director.

Conservatory junior Elissa "ChiChi" Nieves conceived and introduced the idea in June at the 2008 Bonner Summer Leadership Institute held at Allegheny College, then expanded it after the 2008 Bonner Congress Meeting at West Virginia Wesleyan College in October.

Sponsored by the Bonner's Foundation Serve 2.0 Initiative, Nieves led the launch of OberlinServes, a new service wiki website featuring Google calendar, as her 2009 Winter Term project. The wiki officially went online this week.

"It's obvious that more and more students are connected through multiple ways on the Internet, through social networking sites like Facebook and things like blogs, and we just want to use these new connections to get students out of their dorms rooms and into the community," said Nieves.

Oberlin is one of the few schools to expand their wiki beyond just the Bonner Program. The website, oberlinserves.pbwiki.com, is accessible to students and community members alike.