The first Casey Feldman Award has been given to Sean Wiese for his work with Boulder Food Rescue, a local organization that rescues and redistributes perishable food "waste" to charities that serve homeless and at-risk individuals.
The Casey Feldman Foundation has made possible a program at CU that offers stipends to Computer Science students who assist non-profit organizations with their technology needs. Wiese is designing a web application for managing Boulder Food Rescue pickups and deliveries. The web application will allow organizations that donate or receive food from Boulder Food Rescue to input pickup and delivery information. An intelligent planning algorithm can then take in pickups, deliveries, volunteer schedules to plan optimal pickup schedules. The goal of the app will be to allow Boulder Food Rescue to handle more pickups and deliveries using their limited resources.
The Foundation honors the memory of Casey Feldman, 21, of Springfield, PA, a senior at Fordham University, who died as a result of a motor vehicle accident on July 17, 2009. Casey was passionate about a number of causes and always found time in her busy schedule to help those less fortunate, including volunteering at a soup kitchen, a women's shelter, an AIDS clinic, and at a no-kill animal shelter.
In keeping with Casey's dedication to service the Casey Feldman Memorial Foundation has provided funding to CU to offer stipends to students who wish to work for non-profit 501(c)(3) corporations that are dedicated to providing services for others. Often charitable organizations do not have enough resources and their technology needs suffer. The Foundation recognizes this need and wants to help not only the organizations, but those students who are interested in service gain valuable practical experience in their field.