Productivity@Work Contest

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Wesley Community Centers provides a variety of services to senior citizens in the Atlanta area, and two of its most popular outreaches are Project Extend and the Bethlehem Senior Center. The latter operates Monday through Friday, providing hot meals, healthy activities, and social interaction for independent seniors with limited resources. Project Extend offers free home repairs, including new roofs, plumbing, and electrical upgrades, structural repairs, wheelchair ramps, and other modifications that make it possible for elderly homeowners to continue living independently and safely. Demand for Project Extend's services is very high, and the program typically has a waiting list of 40 to 50 qualified seniors.

Prior to being selected as a winner of the Productivity@Work Contest, Wesley Community Centers' efforts were hobbled by outdated technology and minimal networking and communications capabilities, says Cande Taylor, the agency's associate director and program director for Project Extend. "Winning this technology upgrade gives us a big boost in productivity and efficiency and a greatly expanded ability to network with organizations doing similar work," she says. The upgrade also makes it possible for Taylor to telecommute more often, eliminating a 100-mile roundtrip commute on days she works from home.

Company Profile:

Wesley Community Centers, Inc. provides free home repair services to approximately 150 Atlanta/Fulton County senior citizens annually through our Project Extend program. Our work includes installing new roofs, performing plumbing and electrical upgrades, making structural repairs, building wheelchair ramps and other modifications that enable elderly homeowners to continue living independently and safely. We also help these homeowners avoid fines and even jail sentences related to code non-compliance. All of this is accomplished with a small staff including three repair technicians, a small network of contractors and a team of skilled volunteers. Demand for Project Extend service is very high, and we maintain a waiting list of 40-50 qualified seniors. Our capacity to expand and accelerate is impaired by technology that is old, slow and lacking in mission-critical capabilities such as job forecasting software, on-line intake, and web-based volunteer coordination. Currently our internal operation is poorly networked, which seriously erodes staff productivity. Our record-keeping, reporting and grant compliance management are handled manually, consuming time that could be used much more effectively in outreach to clients and volunteers. Awarding a Comcast technology grant for Project Extend will strengthen every aspect of our program: number of clients served; productivity of staff; precision of estimating; success in recruiting volunteers; and ability to tell our story through our web site and thus attract new donors.