Mission
We partner with high-tech social entrepreneurs on specific projects to provide, evaluate, and improve free online services for education, for neighborhood disaster resilience, and for strengthening community economic, public health, and green energy resilience. In order to provide the best possible services, we develop complementary strategic partnerships with federal, state, and local government agencies, and with community- and faith-based organizations for holistic programs to strengthen communities. We are available to serve as mentors to help less established community-based organizations respond to requests for proposals with innovative and structurally sound social program designs that build strong communities through services to support safe, prosperous, and healthy living.
Current Projects
USHD offers holistic social programs and free web tools for communities:
Make a Joyful Noise is a performing arts group of talented young artists who travel throughout New Castle County, Delaware, performing for senior citizens in retirement homes.
Ucount provides assistance to men who are recently released from incarceration by helping them establish or re-establish employment and housing to support successful reintegration with their families and communities.
Open Web Learning (OWL) is a free service for finding, organizing, evaluating, and sharing the best of the web for learning and teaching. OWL enables anyone to learn and teach safely from home. OWL also supports studying in private for adult literacy programs, for extra education at any level on any topic, and whenever public social contexts discourage curiosity, reading, and learning.
Parents, teachers, mentors, and tutors can also help by selecting and organizing materials into lessons to encourage and inspire learning. Remote education becomes possible as well with teachers, mentors, and non-resident parents interacting with students entirely on the web sharing content they find with OWL.
Structure
USHD is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established in 2002 to provide under-privileged communities with free services that support safe, prosperous, and healthy living.
Executive Director: Carnell L. Lofton, M.A.
Carnell Lofton returned Fall 2009 from a tour of duty serving in Iraq as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Delaware National Guard, working as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Carnell places completing the 2007 Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) military course as a defining moment in his career. As a DoD certified mediator and military Equal Opportunity Adviser, and as a career practitioner of alternative dispute resolution, Carnell believes his biggest contribution to society has been centered around helping others peacefully resolve conflict.
Carnell's professional career with the State of Delaware spans nineteen years. Beginning with Family Court as a Mediation and Arbitratino Officer from 1991 to 1996, he was responsible for helping domestic partners craete over 3,000 agreements for custody, visitation, and child support. From 1996 through 2002, Carnell served as a Human Relations Representative for the Division of Human Resources for Delaware's Department of State. As a Human Relations Representative, he was responsible for conducting investigations and amicably resolving citizen allegations of discrimination that may have violated state and federal laws on housing and public accommodations. From 2002 to present, Carnell works with Delaware's Health and Social Services, Division of Child Support Enforcement as an Executive Assistant to the Director. In this position, he is responsible for identifying areas of opportunities that assist non-custodial parents through innovative approaches to meeting their child support opportunities.
Carnell began developing as a socially conscious corporate athlete while growing up in a disadvantaged community in New Bern, North Carolina. He credits sports and the lessons learned through sports for his motivation and guidance to overcome life obstacles. Ultimately, Carnell earned a football and track scholarship to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and graduated with a B.A. in Political Science in May 1987. While attending Fisk, he also received a United States Army Commission (Reserve Component) from the Vanderbilt University Army ROTC program in May 1987. Carnell earned his M.A. in Human Services Administration from Springfield College in 2001.