posted on April 28, 2006 10:09:16 PM new
I am adding my 10 year old's near-dead laptop to the pile of deceased computers in my garage. I asked my neighbor, a retired programmer, if he could recommend a cheap replacement.
He pointed me to an organization he does volunteer work for - FREE GEEK, a Portland non-profit. They started in 2000 with the goal of keeping harmful computer components from damaging the environment by tearing apart the donated computers, sorting the components and selling them to recyclers. They found that many components were easily fixable and decided it was more effective to reuse many of them for resale in their thrift store or to donate to non-profits or the needy. Their motto now is 'Helping the needy get nerdy'.
I browsed their thrift store today and ended up taking a tour of their operations. It blew me away! They have a fantastic volunteer mixture of street people, retired professionals, donated corporate employees - ripping systems apart, testing the components, building new systems and sorting and selling the broken or outdated parts to recyclers who will melt them down and use them for something else. Their donations come from single homes, like mine, to pallets of still functional computers from corporations. The hard drives are immediately locked up, then overwritten 5 times to ensure that sensitive data does not get passed on to new users.
They load the computers with free operating systems and software (Linux and the OSF equivalent of Microsoft Office), they have a bank of computers connected to the internet for free access by anyone (no lines, no maximum time limits) and another bank of computers they use for free software classes.
The computers in their thrift shop are priced about the same as similar systems on eBay. If you volunteer 4 hours, you get a 50% discount. Needy or not, if you volunteer 24 hours in their adopt-a-computer program, you get a free computer.
They also have a build-a-computer program. You receive complete instructions on how to build and test computers. After you build 6 computers, you get to keep one. Many of their build-a-computer graduates have gotten jobs with Intel and other high-tech firms in the area.
My son and I decided he would earn his computer through volunteer work. We start tomorrow. He has 'computed' since he was 3 and has probably surpassed me (I have a Scandinavian studies/computer sciences major and 30 years software career) in modern computing.
I am posting this in hopes that it will spread to other parts of the globe - it's such a good idea! I know that it has already spread to other U.S. cities (Columbus, Ohio for one.) For more info see www.freegeek.org
posted on April 29, 2006 02:14:28 AM new
That is one of those places I keep meaning to get over to, I heard about them a couple of years ago and agree they do have a good org.
posted on April 29, 2006 10:10:01 AM new
Now that sounds super. Would love it if they had one near me. Great idea. Good luck.
**************
Some minds are like concrete,
thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.
posted on April 29, 2006 10:48:06 AM new
Not that, that organisation isn't a good thing, which it is but instead of donating your old computer you can do what I just did. I wiped out, formatted the hard drive on my old computer, removed it from the case and installed it in a hard drive enclosure. You can do a lot with a 30 gig portable hard drive.
Removable hard drive enclosures can be gotten for as little as fifteen bucks at, umm, ahh, what's that place that sells all sorts of stuff, you know the place that advertises that whatever IT is you can get IT here?
posted on April 29, 2006 03:23:52 PM new
There are similar not-for-profit recyclers in many countries. I know of three in NZ which are set up as community trusts so all profits can be retained for good causes within the community: women's refuges, disabled children... Most were set up with council grants and became self-funding after a few years. It's important to get good business and technology people onboard in the early stages.
