projectOPEN Update

I'm excited to share an update with everyone about projectOPEN. This past weekend, Dontae, Greg, James, Josh K., BRUTE LABS friend Ardy and I traveled to Santa Monica to distribute the projectOPEN homeless services resource guide. It was an incredible experience.

A Santa Monica man with the guide and extra copies to hand out to others in the homeless community.

Here are the highlights from their trip:

• We distributed 1,000 guides to over 30 organizations across Santa Monica.
• We received an overwhelmingly positive response--nearly everyone we spoke with was thrilled about the project and quality of the resource guide
• Josh K. and Ardy also handed out the guides directly to members of the homeless community who found them extremely useful and promised to share them with others
• We also met with key individuals at a number of the homeless services organizations who pledged their ongoing support of the project and willingness to help update the map to improve its accuracy

All of us were thrilled to finally distribute the guides, nearly four years after the project began on the UCLA campus. There are several people and organizations that made this project possible who we'd like to take this opportunity to thank:

• UCLA Art|Sci Center for the grant that helped make this project possible
• Katherine Rettberg for enabling us to travel to and from Santa Monica for free!
• Ardy Ghanbar for hitting the pavement with the team to distribute maps
• James Buyayo for spending hundreds of hours pouring over every detail of the guide
• Joshua To for his vision for this project and leadership
• Justin To for spending hours making our guide great
• Justin Yahr for donating space for the team to stay while in Santa Monica
• Bomi Im, Rebecca Park, Camilla Zecchetto and Willem Henri Lucas

Please stay tuned for more updates about projectOPEN. We're going to need your help to print more resource guides in Santa Monica and are eager to expand this project to other cities.

Interested in helping us make a difference? Let us know how you can help.