Award-Winning for Peace

The American Friends Service Committee won the best integrated online and off-line e-philanthropy campaign award from the E-Philanthropy Foundation for the Friends for Peace campaign.

Thank you all for supporting Friends for Peace. Seeing your signs and photos -- and donations -- has been inspiring.

Here's a photo of Levana, Aaron, and me holding the hefty glass award AFSC won. (Yep, that's me with the red hair on the left.) Many people worked on this project, including all our volunteer photo moderators and photographers. This award is all of ours.

Thanks!

Mark
Project Coordinator for Peace

Calling Facebook Users

Over the last couple of days I've been trying to come up with a simple facebook app that might help draw attention to Friends for Peace. So far, I haven't had much success at coming up with a good idea that works.

I've created a very simple app that will display a picture on the users profile page. I had wanted to have that image change to a new random page every time you reload your profile, but it turns out that Facebook's cacheing mechanisms don't make that easy (if someone knows a good way around this I'd love to hear it).

My other idea would be to create an app that would allow users to sent pictures to each other, similar to the gifts apps that are so prolific on facebook. That's a lot more involved of a project, so I'm stalling in the hopes of getting another better idea. Are there any facebook users that have a better idea, or that would be willing to help create an app?

Aaron
Coding for Peace


Update 10/11/2007:
I was able to figure out how to do the random image changes, so there now is a Facebook application called: Friends for Peace. I'd love to have a bunch of people add the app and give me some feedback about what we can do to make it better. -- Aaron

Update 11/8/2007:
Facebook users can find the app here. -- Aaron

Quakers Quakers everywhere

The last couple of weeks have generated pictures from several different Quaker groups. Now I'll grant you that this is not surprising for a Quaker organization, but since I have personal connections to these groups getting posted now, I couldn't resist pointing them out.

First came the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Middle School Friends, who took some pictures during this year's Residential Yearly Meeting, including this Foosball player. Not only was I once a member of this group, but I'd also helped arrange getting the materials to them, so it was fun to see the pictures come through.

The next set that came in were from Powell House, which is part of New York Yearly Meeting. I took noticed these in part because they included a felter I met while I went to college near her meeting.

Finally, the group that meant I had to write something was from Buckingham Friends Meeting, which runs the elementary school I attended. That was one too many groups I knew, so it was time to say something.

Aaron
Coding for Peace

1000 images and counting

Just a few moments ago I finally got to approve the 1000th image. Thanks to everyone that's posted an image so far, and please keep them coming. It's great to see all these faces from all over the country supporting peace.

Coding for Peace
Aaron

Summer Activities

Over the past few weeks I've been enjoying watching images come in from various summer activities. We got a bunch around the 4th of July that included images from events like parades. I've also been enjoying watching images come in from various Quaker groups over the past few weeks. Intermountain Yearly Meeting sent some nice images from their annual sessions, and this past week we got a bunch from Friends Meeting at Cambridge.

I'm still hoping we can push the image count over 1000 soon. There should be images from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting coming after their annual sessions this weekend, I'm looking forward to seeing them after I get back from vacation. If you know a group that would like to put pictures up, please take the time to run a photo booth, we love to see what comes in!


Coding for Peace
Aaron

4th of July for Peace

As you may have noticed, we have almost reached 1,000 Friends for Peace. We need your help to push the number over 1,000, and 4th of July is the perfect time to do it.

Many of you will be gathering with family and friends, and we encourage you to take photos at your gatherings. What a great way to show a majority for peace in Iraq -- on the 4th of July!

Here are some instructions and helpful hints for taking photos in a group: Photo booth kit. (PDF 1.76 MB) You can download these instructions and print them out.

We hope that everyone has a peaceful holiday and thanks for your support of Friends for Peace.

Thanks Anne

I want to publicly thank to Anne in AFSC's NYC Office. Over the last couple of days she's uploaded roughly 70 Friends for Peace pictures. Anne was traveling around her region with the Eyes Wide Open exhibit. Her first stop was in the Bronx:

The second stop was on Long Island, where she found an exciting array of community college students interested in participating.

Aaron
Coding for Peace