The CAPS Project: Community Building Through Technology in Hawai`i
Abstract: Community building through technology was the key to success for the CAPS (Community Adolescent Physicals for Sports Project) as it facilitated the coordination of people as volunteers in a high poverty community. The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii awarded a local non-profit funding for medical equipment and supplies. In the spirit of Aloha, 40 doctors and nurses, 97 volunteers from across the island of Oahu, and local Hawaii Department of Education district and school administrators came together to provide 267 students with free sports physicals to enable access to sports programs that will have a positive impact on their lives, lower current obesity and diabetes levels, and hopefully increase academic performance. The free sports physicals event has been highly successful at community building; in fact, it has begun to change community norms already as local state legislators held the second annual event in July 2014.
Presider: Cynthia Sistek-Chandler, National University