HiOctang's Ride

Ride4Charity

Elizabeth

aka: HiOctang

Regardless if you know us as HiOctang and Big Easy or Michael and Elizabeth. Through this effort you will know supporting our passion for youth education and riding motorcycles is important to us.

Through our passion of motorcycle riding we are looking to expand youth education by raising money for BDPA.

We want to insure every child has the opportunity to receive quality education regardless if its received from an online or traditional classroom. We are looking to expand youth technology education serviced by BDPA community youth technology programs that provide the necessary tools for students to become educated in technology and become IT professionals - in a competitive, global, and growing market.

My husband and I share a few key fundamental values that carry forward in to every facet of our lives. We are all here to serve our God given purpose within the talents we are given. By giving back to our community, with the support of family, we are able to give of our time, resources and talents.

This year we have chosen to ride around the perimeter of the United States in 10 days and over 7,000 highway miles in our hope to raise $10,000 in donations given to BDPA's foundation - BDPA Education Technology Foundation (BETF).

We are not searching for fortune or fame.  We want to give back through education. Instead of our youth only being consumers of technology products we want them to become the creators, inventors, programmers and the IT developers of technology.

Our goal is to give our youth options.

Why do I ride?

• I ride for the Freedom.
  
• I ride because education is not free.
  
• I ride for youth education.
  
• I ride to show every child they can pursue their dreams by having a vision, persistence, hard work and dedication to their cause.
  

Track our ride progress online (Ride Info Page), join us for a leg of the ride, join a BDPA chapter and give of your time or help by giving whatever your wallet can support and your heart is content worth giving.  Just ride now for education speaks volumes.

Sincerely,

HiOctang

Michael aka: Big Easy

I have been heavily involved with the BDPA organization for ten years - and a member off and on over the past 20+ years prior. I understand its untapped power and ability to influence and entire generation.

When I grew up we didn't have these types of programs that actually gave us skills we could turn around immediately and get jobs doing this kind of work.

Everything I needed was right there at Ober Boys & Girls Club of St. Paul, MN. At the club "Big Bill", Grams, and all the people there made things happen so we stayed busy and we learned about new things we didn't know about. Building model cars, ping pong tournaments, doing wood working and much more activities like that that gave us basic skills on assembling, affixing, and engineering/reverse-engineering skills we need later in life. I grew up in the projects next to the Boys & Girls Club and although my mother and grandmother worked full time jobs, they really didn't have money to buy models nor what the heck is woodworking? 

"The Club" filled in the gaps not realizing the significant impact it'd have on my future.

TODAY kids are using technology like crazy. Even toddlers grabbing your smartphones and playing Angry Birds, pulling up kid videos on Netflix with ease, and how they move through the screens instinctively. So instead of our kids growing up to learn how to "use" or "get" technology, why can't we teach them the skills on how they work so they can INVENT or CREATE technology?

Now why this ride is so important to me? Many of the kids BDPA services today have homes, parents that have reliable transportation to shuttle their kids across town to attend classes. Well quite honestly, EVERY DIME that is donated here is going to bring these courses OUT TO THE KIDS where they live in their neighborhood in their community. It is my life's goal to give every child in the USA "options" to learn technology. We ran a pilot at the Boys & Girls clubs in the Twin Cities and with your donation we can expand giving these opportunities not only to those kids that "have" but those kids that may "have not". The people across the USA that donate hundreds of hours are incredible! The kicker - no one gets paid to do these jobs - THEY VOLUNTEER. And these kids DON'T PAY A DIME - they get FREE technical training. Training sometimes better and easier for them to understand than what they learn at a technical trade school. They learn more than programming they learn how to be future IT Professionals.

My other goal is to get the kids that want to learn technology in to technical schools and in to technical internships and jobs. Sitting right there in some community center, some Boys & Girls Club, some Neighborhood House, some urban or rural classroom are future leaders, inventors, technologists and more. And it's a damn shame with the money the United States has we cannot even feed and shelter our homeless.

I want to do my part with the skills and Gifts given to me. My "Dream" is, before my MAKER calls me to REST, is to give back and do something that helps kids in our future by at least giving them the confidence, skills and the ability to explore a plethora of options in life ... If my rear-end survives this long 7,000+ mile 10 day ride and we raise the $10,000 I vow to everyone who donated I will personally live to see kids deep in our community get BDPA options as a reality. $10,000 will go towards establishing a virtual online classroom environment, documentation, administration, internships, and services that enable teaching our kids. I originally asked for $100,000 based on original calculations but I should ask for enough to make sure the program gets started within parts of this great nation.

As my wife and I launch this fundraiser I turn it over to my God and pray that your $5, $10, $25, $100, or more donation lands on your heart to give.

So that's part of my story I'd like to share.

The ride is for a good cause so what can you do?

1. Click the DONATE button and get that tax-deductible donation to Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA) Foundation (BETF).

2. Spread the word. Please share our charity ride or reach out to BDPA chapters in your city (www.BDPA.org) and see how you can help. BDPA is located in 45+ cities across the United States.

3. Come ride with us.

The Riders &

Testimonials

What are you doing and where will my donation go?

by Michael Wulf (May 2014)

In short, the target $10,000 fundraiser may be "adequate" to accommodate a entry-level scalable learning environment based on the expected initial expectations.  To design, document and train volunteers in a "start small and grow quickly soon after the maiden voyage" requires proper preparation and funding.  We'll continue to be all volunteer effort but it does have some challenges in delivery of services.  All donations you give go directly to the #BDPA Foundation (#BETF) and then to service providers/vendors to set up the online series of courses to serve students deep inside the community.  Classes will be taught at neighborhood community centers across the United States (e.g. neighborhood municipalities, Boys & Girls Clubs, etc.) where BDPA chapters exist.  Initially targeting a couple of BDPA chapters for the 2015 Spring semester then position for rapid growth in late 2015 in to 2016.

Your donation to this #BDPA effort is needed to provide 2014 funding for:

* Online classroom management system ($4000 - software plugin, database integration, software customization).

* Hosting of courseroom management system (servers, software support, administration) - ($3500).

* Documentation for a multi-skill level environment for high-school and college students ($250)

* Documented and design of instructor and volunteer materials ($250).

* Scholarships to student instructors for "giving back" by training students that can relate to them ($2000 in 2014 for 2015).

Specific needs for the online classes - As an organization this effort will bring us together to streamline multiple individual efforts.  Consolidating the infrastructure, tools, and curriculum is a required part of this effort.  We have avaiable expertise in managing an online virtual classroom we can leverage.  This effort is currently expected to stand up a Moodle classroom environment. We want the environment to scale with the anticipated growth and expansion of the BDPA training programs in many cities where interested members exist. We will provide services that allow a volunteer team of instructors, coordinators, and classroom volunteers from across the 45+ BDPA cities an efficient and easy online learning management system to engage with it.  This requires donations for additional programming of fee based "Plug-Ins" such as support services for student assessment, live dynamic programming environment per student, testing/quiz management, success measurement (grading) and other features that any modern education system should include.  We'll these services to the students that can benefit from it the most.  We also desire to make the environment easy to use and fun - these are people (students & volunteers) giving of their Saturdays and free time that "want" to be part of the learning environment. We all know this environment does require funding to be done properly.  We want it to be modern software making it easy to use by Including drag & drop multi-media capabilities rather than less cryptic Browse, Attach and Upload process native to this MOOC environment.  "Gamification" these days in the learning environment is a critical offering to learners.  The ability to see and track success through the multiple class tasks and courses is important.  Tracking even the simplest of things like keyboarding and progress towards their own goal is an example.  Database integration services and some level of continuation tracking designed on top of the environment is a key element so we can remain a relevant and active partner in supporting the student's post-secondary and career education through their entry in to a professional career.  The environment must meet after-school program needs for Saturdays and weekday formats in a traditional and inverted facilitated style of delivery.  We anticipate the program taking off rapidly beyond our planned delivery of February 2015 and expect it to grow exponentially.  Hosting and migration to a new performance platform is a must.  There are many other requirements, hopefully this gives you an idea - basically an environment to facilitate online learning in a professional and dependable manner that is easy to use and learn with no matter where they are, their grade level, or even if this expands to working adults at some future time.