The Nest, a community coffee house on Lawrence Street in Port Townsend, was faced with a dilemma in its efforts to point local young people toward the resources that exist to serve them.

The Nest, which directs 100% of its proceeds toward youth and young adult programming, had compiled a printed list of youth resources available in Jefferson County, but they knew that information had a much better chance of reaching young people through the channels they already use.

So the Nest teamed up with Skillmation, which promotes the support of youth and mentors in the community, so that the Nest’s list of more than 100 youth resources in the county could be digitized, to be accessible by mobile devices.

Hoot360.org is a website, and not yet an app, but it’s designed to be easy to use on a smartphone, with direct links to websites, maps, email addresses and automatic phone dialing for youth resources serving the community. This is not only to increase young people’s awareness of those resources, but also to provide more direct access.

Skillmation partner Mark Westlund, a retired programmer, touted “The Hoot” website as employing Extensible Markup Language (XML) programming, which separates the data from the formatting of the website.

What this actually means, according to Westlund, is that all the Hoot’s maintainers will need to do, in order to update its lists, is enter the youth resources and their contacts, while the layout of the site can be independently reconfigured, however its maintainers might choose.

“That way, people won’t need extensive training to update the site,” fellow Skillmation partner Ben Bauermeister said. People can also contact them, through the site, to suggest additions or updates of their own.

Westlund noted that both the Hoot’s lists of resources and its online format were the subjects of “several iterations of focus groups,” comprised of their target audience of local young people.

The Hoot is organized by topic, with the aim of making it easy to navigate resources ranging from emergency information and health needs, to educational and employment opportunities, and even basics such as food and clothing.

Westlund elaborated that Skillmation is exploring not only a desktop computer layout for the Hoot, but also a possible app, but in the meantime, they knew the site had to be optimized for smartphone viewing to start with.

“Think about events like the Jefferson County Job and Trades Fair,” Westlund said. “If you hand young attendees pieces of paper to check out, those disappear almost instantly. But if you give them a website to check out, or a QR code to scan that takes them directly to that site, they can focus their searches as broadly or narrowly as they want. And once they find what they want, they can call up a map, send an email or make a phone call, all by tapping an icon.”

Skillmation partners Gary Smith and Martha Trolin added that the Hoot website was produced under a Creative Commons license, which means that other service organizations are free to contact Skillmation about adopting its template for their own use, free of charge.

Trolin proudly touted the work of ninth-grader Will Tran in designing a flier to promote the Hoot website, while Bauermeister expressed the hope that the Hoot’s list of resources would help the organizations behind them connect not only with young people, but also with each other.

Until then, the Hoot has at least one endorsement from the demographic it’s seeking to serve.

“I use it all the time,” said Sarah Henry, resource navigator for the Nest. “Whenever I have a question about local youth resources, I immediately go to the Hoot. Its categories make it so easy to search through.”

Visit hoot360.org online, and for more information, email Skillmation at info@skillmation.org.

Skillmation is a program of StrongerTowns, a Port Townsend non-profit organization providing fiscal sponsorship to concepts that address problems unique to rural communities.