A Place 4 You
A student virtual gathering space to assist students impacted by COVID-19. and raise awareness on homelessness among college students.
The Challenge:
College Homelessness is a widely unrecoginized challenge plaguing today's college student. Prior to COVID-19, data from the Winsconsin Hope Center identified 15% of college student nationally experience homelessness in some fashion. Locally at Tarrant County College, 52% experienced housing insecurity, 32% experienced severe food insecurity, and 72% where less than confident they will be able to repay their student loans prior to the Pandemic.
The pandemic amplified existing insecurities and brought new challenges as students adapted to online classes. As on campus resources became unavailable and the looming uncertainty of the pandemic lingered, a need for centralized resources, social support, and a place to safely convene surfaced.
Our Response:
Over a period of 2-months we worked with Phi Theta Kappa at Tarrant County College South Campus to develop a virtual meeting space and educational summit to help raise awareness to the challenges students at Tarrant County College faced in the height of the pandemic. The summit was a place to share intimate stories and share informationvaluable resources being offered through out the community for students.
The virtual meeting space was a response to the limited options to safely convene. We developed a virtual space using Mozilla Hubs to give students a centralized place to meet and share resources with any and all that visited. It was a space any organization could use to post resources students could apply for while allowing students the ability to safely meet to work, study, or socialize.
Project Objectives
1) Create an immersive COVID-19 safe space for Tarrant College Students to use to study, share resources, and build support networks.
2) Raise awareness on the day-to-day challenges college students face.
3) Align community resources to support students in need.
Our Partners
This project was done in partnership with Tarrant County College South Campus Family Empowerment Center and the Tarrant County College South Campus Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa.
