As a student in 2020, I volunteered with VOICE Advocacy, an Idaho non-profit that partners with other non-profits to help them develop the community. Our goal: to create a publication covering a wide swath of community issues with statistics, insights into problems, and actions already being done to solve those problems. 

This project took place in the summer of 2020 when COVID-19 restrictions were at their height. We couldn’t meet in person, so researchers remoted in to collaborate from all over the country. I had seen headlines about the effects of remote work on children in school, and it was uncertain whether school would be shut down again in the Fall. So, I chose to research broadband connections in our counties, and what could be done to ensure they were all connected.