End of The Year Wrap-Up and Summer Updates

Hi all, for the first blog post I want to share some end-of-the-year and summer updates.

The 2022-2023 year ended with the successful completion and drop-off of our first pod to Cypress Freeway Memorial Park, an unhoused community in Oakland. Ethan, Maya, Zara, and I delivered the pod to Anita, who has been living in her car for the last few years. As we were about to leave, Anita brought over her friend Gloria, who entered her number into my phone and asked us if she could receive the next pod we built.

It was amazing to see the pod making a difference in someone's life, but it was also sad to see the terrible living conditions of unhoused individuals, and the demand for pods. If we had dropped off 30 pods that day, they would have all been claimed within an hour.

Over the summer, the club has been working hard on outreach work. Next year, we aim to expand the project outside of our high school by reaching out to local schools and organizations.

I have written a construction manual for pod-building to simplify the building process. The manual contains purchase lists, cut lists, detailed images and descriptions of each step, and will hopefully make pod construction more comprehensive and approachable. I built a CAD model of the pod in order to make diagrams for the manual, linked here: https://a360.co/3Ds4yIv

Finally, I built this website, which has detailed information for anyone looking to learn more about the project and how to get involved.

I am very excited to get to work on the next pod at the beginning of the school year, which we will build for Gloria.

Have a great summer!

Carly Bodnick