Posts Tagged ‘paul goetzman’

Paul Goetzman

Paul Goetzman, 18, Hiawatha
Freshman@ Mount Mercy College
Web Developer and Designer @ CancerReallySucks.orgIt all started five years ago as a class project as a sophomore at Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School.

Paul Goetzman agreed to design a Web site for a local non-profit that was just getting started, Gems of Hope, an organization that gives gifts of jewelry mounted on inspirational cards to cancer patients.

Since then Paul has gone on not only to continue to maintain Gems of Hope’s Web site, www.GemsofHopeNet.org, but also helped launched that group’s sister site specifically for teens, www.CancerReallySucks.org

With the help of a panel of teens who have been affected by cancer, Paul created a site for teens to connect, vent and deal with the illness.

The class ended years ago and Paul has since graduated from high school and started as a student at Mount
Mercy College.
Still, he maintains CancerReallySucks.org

“I had no idea what would come of it,” he says. “There’s always different things to tweak.”

Web design isn’t his passion though. He could take it or leave it.

He may have a lot of experience building sites, but “my plan is to do nothing with computers,” Paul says.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a plan. He does. A very specific one.

“I plan to be a Cedar Rapids police officer,” he says. “Not just a police officer. A Cedar Rapids police officer.”
Most little boys dream of being a police officer someday. Paul was no different.
He just never got over it.

“I’m pretty set on it,” he says.

At some point, he’d like to pass the daily responsibilities of the site over to someone else. But until that person steps up, Paul says he’ll continue to fill the need.

It helps, he says, that he’s a teen heading up a site that’s built for teens.
“The whole site is pretty interactive,” he says.

There’s a wall, for example, where visitors can post what they’re thankful for. The result is a rainbow of thoughts of thanks for ” the greatest BFF Sarah D and The Sound Of Music,” and “my sister being given a second chance
at life.”

There’s also a section called “How to Deal” designed by counselors and social workers to help teens identify their emotions. A message board provides a place for teens to ask questions or share their story.

Paul says the hardest part of the site is getting the word out. But someone is noticing. In high school, he won Kohls’ Kids Who Care award for his work and more recently he received a National Philanthropic Award for his efforts on behalf of Gems of Hope and Cancer Really Sucks.

“I help them a lot, but I see it the other way around,” Paul says. “I love to do it because I love to see the end result: people using it.”

©2009, Gazette Communications