A screenshot of the new We Love Long Beach online community’s homepage.
10:01am | We Love Long Beach is launching their new online community resource today (Friday), which features tools to help connect local nonprofits and other service organizations with individuals looking to volunteer or otherwise participate.
The website, WeLoveLB.org, has two main search tools. The first provides listings by council district and the second by interest.
“We have many categories, including neighborhoods, animals, GLBTQ, Religious, Women, and the Environment,” said Scott Jones, cofounder of We Love Long Beach. “We have groups on board from the Mayor’s Office to Habitat for Humanity.”
The project arose from conversations with members of the community who were looking for local volunteer opportunities and organizations that were seeking to connect more effectively with residents.
“For the past three years we were getting so many requests to post events on our Facebook fan page,” Jones continued, “and in many of the meetings we were having, people kept saying that there needed to be a nonprofit resource on the web.”
Adam Ferry, the volunteer director of development, found financial support for the project from Dave Kerns, a local Realtor, and hired Ashley Bradford with Illuminate Design to create it.
“There are a lot of nonprofits that are looking for a place to gain more volunteer support from the community,” Jones said. “There are also citizens both young and old that are looking for more opportunities to get into the community and serve side-by-side (with) their neighbors. We hope that the website can be a bridge between the two.”