Tirrell Service Learning Project
Students enrolled in Tirrell's 420 course will be working with the Community and Family Resource Center (CFRC), a local non-profit organization. A one-page statement about the organization and some of its programs is available here.
Groups will produce two versions of a brochure soliciting prospective volunteers for CFRC's annual Christmas Day Dinner event: one full-color version and one grayscale version. Document specifications and support files are below. Some of the information is general, so your group will be expected to make design decisions. Remember that you will receive feedback from CFRC on two drafts before the final documents are due. Any questions that you have for the client or about the project should be directed to me.
As you put together these brochures, keep the following in mind:
- Brochures must present accurate and relevant information to the appropriate audiences.
- Brochures must consider the qualities of effective design from the Thompson Handbook to create a well-designed and usable document.
- Brochures must be technically correct in content, spelling, and grammar.
- Brochures must demonstrate that the group has responded to feedback provided by the client.
- Brochures must be professional and polished in prose and design to represent CFRC well.
- The client will ultimately select one group's documents to put into production. The selected group will turn over its master document files for use and adaptation by CFRC. Only the selected group will receive an A grade on the project.
Above all, groups should respond to direction provided by the client. The client's needs are paramount.
Content:
Brochures should contain the following:
- A short statement about CFRC including its contact information (CFRC uses the South Side Community Center's contact information). This may be drawn from CFRC's website and CFRC's information statement.
- Information about the Christmas Day Dinner event, which may be taken from CFRC's information statement and the "Christmas Day Dinner" section in these event descriptions.
- Information about the volunteer opportunities, particularly those before and after Christmas Day. Essentially, volunteer positions fall into categories: pre-event coordinators, pre-event volunteers for procurement, decoration, wrapping, poinsettia delivery, meat preparation, and transportation, event volunteers for kitchen work, food service, greeting, telephone reception, and transportation, and post-event volunteers for take down and clean up.
- A statement that people who are unable to volunteer can still make cash, check, or credit card donations at any time at the South Side Community Center.
- A mail-in form that allows volunteers to enter their names and contact information, how they would like to volunteer (preferably using something like a checkbox), and/or the amount of an enclosed check donation.
Context:
These brochures will be available at the South Side Community Center, and they will be disseminated at CFRC's other events, as well as at volunteer drives in businesses, high schools, universities, and churches.
Audience:
The audience for these brochures is very broad. Many volunteers are recruited from the locations mentioned above (businesses, high schools, universities, and churches). Also, many volunteers are people who make use of CFRC's services, including Christmas Day Dinner. This means that the audience encompasses a very large range of ages, educational backgrounds, and socioeconomic levels. The brochures must be readable for those with low eyesight, comprehensible for those with low literacy, yet also professional to appeal to businesses and donors.
Medium:
Both the full-color and grayscale brochures should fit onto either standard 8.5" by 11" or 8.5" by 14" white or single-color paper. A standard tri-fold or four-fold brochure is possible, but feel free to be creative in your design. Because your master files may require revision by CFRC, they must be in either Microsoft Word or Microsoft Publisher format.