The United Way's most important role is to coordinate and convene the many entities that must work together in times of extraordinary need.

In a time where technology is the center of our lives, the United Way decided that a website would be the best way to help Hurricane Katrina evacuees restart their lives in Southeastern Michigan.

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Typically, our strategies are carefully and meticulously planned out so that our customers receive the highest possible return from their new website.

This time around speed was crucial to help those in need as soon as possible. After a number of short meetings among the staff at United Way and the team at Awecomm, we assembled what we felt was the most usable way to layout information on the site. While the staff members at United Way worked to assemble the information that would be included on the site, the AWS team worked continuously to develop a site which would normally take months to complete, in a matter of days.

The site was used by over 200 faith-based, non-profit, government and public sector organizations to coordinate evacuee information.

The site was featured on Channel 4 News and was used by over 400 local individuals to register as host families for hurricane evacuees relocated to Southeastern Michigan. United Way for Southeastern Michigan maintains the site, which was developed and is being hosted pro bono by Awecomm Technologies.