The SolidWorks Geek

Everybody Knows that Designers and Engineers design the world around us. Now we as engineers have a chance to design a new future for children who need help. The SolidWorks Geek is now proud to announce a charity donation drive for the Orangewood Children’s Foundation to raise money for residents of the Orangewood Children’s Home. 100% of donations will be presented to the Orangewood Children’s Foundation when our goal of $5000 is met.

What is the Orangewood Children’s Foundation?

The Orangewood Children’s Foundation provides support for the Orangewood Children’s Home in Orange County, California. Children that are rescued from abusive or neglected homes are placed in Orangewood Children’s Home in preparation for finding the children a foster home or group home. Every year in Orange County there are approximately 27,000 cases of child abuse reported and nearly 10% of the cases result in children being rescued from their households.

Children that are rescued from their homes become wards of the state and many times spend the rest of their childhood in foster homes and group homes. On turning 18, children are emancipated and many find the transition difficult without a family support system to fall back on. The Orangewood Children’s Foundation address these issues by offering emergency assistance, job placement, transitional housing, peer counseling and scholarships for college or vocational training.

Personal Experience

You might be asking yourself, why The SolidWorks Geek has decided to throw his support behind this cause? When I was a teenager I was a resident of the Orangewood Children’s Home until I was placed in a group home. Looking back at my life, I can pinpoint my time in Orangewood as a turning point in my life. Prior to Orangewood, my life was in shambles and I was on a path of self-destruction. Orangewood played a very important role rebuilding my life and becoming the geek that I am today. In fact, it was at Orangewood I discovered my love for computers that continues to this day.

It is because of my personal experience as being a ward of the state of California that I decided to do what I can to help this awesome organization.

About the Drive

Initially, I plan to raise $5000 dollars that will then be presented to The Orangewood Children’s Foundation. I will also ensure that the entire SolidWorks, CAD, Engineering, blogger & twitter community will be recognized for their contributions. The actually goal amount can be adjusted if there appears to be a large amount of support. In addition to the charity drive itself, I would like to get some corporate support for the drive. If you are interested in help with the drive or you know a company that would be interested; send an email to designforthefuture@theswgeek.com. Updates will be added to this page and the progress will be displayed.

Spread the Word

If you would like to help spread the word about Design For The Future, please feel free to add one of the following images to your site, blog or email signature.  Just right-click the image and select Save Image As and save the images to your local PC before adding them to your site or blog. When setting up the link, link back to this page.

These images were reader created and if you have any that you have created, please let me know and I can add them to this page.

Blogger’s Support

One of the most exciting aspects of the Design For The Future drive, has been the support from the blogger community. Some bloggers from the SolidWorks, CAD and lifestyle community have written some great posts advertising the drive to their readers. In appreciation for their help in spreading the word, I would like to return the favor. The following blogs have written articles about the drive and I encourage all of my readers to visit their sites and subscribe to their RSS feeds. If I have missed anybody, please let me know.

• SpaceClaiming – An online community about the latest CAD technologies.
• Novedge Pulse – A CAD blog post and news aggregator
• Novedge – The Blog – Novedge world of graphics and design
• Land of Gracious Living – A site about living in Yorba Linda, California
• The Glamorous Life Association – Marcy writes about living in Orange County California
• CADFanatic – Brian McElyea is the CAD Fanatic.
• Devon Sowell’s Blog – A fellow Southern California SolidWorks Blogger
• Jeff’s Blog – Jeff Mirisola is a SolidWorks blogger and a good friend.
• Rocksolid Perspective - Jason Raak writes about using SolidWorks
• SolidSmack – Does Josh Mings really need any introduction? The media darling of the SolidWorks community.
• SolidWorks: Heard! - Lou Gallo brings you the best damn SolidWorks podcast.
• Virtually 3D – Burhop is a technology junky, SL Avatar, 3D software developer, car tinkerer, CAD user, and upcoming Social Media extremist.
• CadCamStuff.com – Lars Christensen is a Mold Maker by trade but he also runs the CadCAdStuff.com blog with some great information about SolidWorks and MasterCAM.

I hope I got them all, if I missed anybody please let me know and I will make the update.

Logo Design

Thanks to the power of twitter, we were able to find an extremely talented graphic designer to create our new logo for Design For the Future. We would strongly recommend Elena Cv for any graphic design project you have coming up.

Find Elena on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/EleART

Website:  www.findmyart.com

Check out more of Elena’s work: http://www.redbubble.com/people/ellena

Thank You

I would like to thank each and everyone of you ahead of time for your support. Also, don’t forget to spread the word about this great cause.

Alex R. Ruiz

The SolidWorks Geek