Computer Donations Project

[mlb at imparisystems.com]

Thanks Nate!

I've been looking at the other side of the Donations Project - who will get
them.  I've talked with the Boys and Girls Club of Frederick County -
apparently the Boys and Girls Club gets free Windows and deeply discounted
applications through the national offices and want Windows boxes.  They'll
take Linux servers but don't have the knowledge to set them up and would
need help doing that.

I've found that non-profits and local organizations that run off of
volunteer effort are usually interested in server based applications, but
prefer to stick with Windows on the desktop because they can get volunteers
to support it easier.

I am starting to contact some other organizations to see what is possible
and looking into public service announcements.  I'm looking to distribute
these boxes to people who need them vs. people who want a good deal.  I'm
also trying to contact some churches to see if they have some method to
determine people in need.  

Right now, I'm checking with some groups at the state government level -
notably Child Services and WIC.

If people have any ideas, let me know and I'll track it down.

On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:38:08 -0400, Nate <omegamormegil at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all!
> 
> I just wanted to bring up some of the suggestions that were offered at
> Thursday's meeting.
> 
> The most interesting suggestion in my opinion, was to organize a
> "Distributed Warehouse" for donations.  While individuals interested in
> this
> project are unlikely to be able to offer a lot of storage space for the
> incoming donations, it is much more likely that a few people would be
able
> to store small numbers (3-6?) of computers at their homes.  The actual
> locations of the stored hardware would be kept private, but information
on
> how many and what kind of computers are in storage would be put on the
> wiki.  If I can get some volunteers to offer some space, we can start
> taking
> in the first donations so we can more efficiently serve those asking for
> computers.  If you are interested in donating some space, email me
directly
> and indicate how many computers you would be willing to store.  And
again,
> I
> will not post any personally identifiable information to the wiki.
> 
> In addition to donations of computers, we may need donations of
networking
> hardware, keyboards/mice, power cables, etc.  I'm working on getting in
> touch with the Chesapeake Center for Youth Development to determine if
they
> need any networking hardware (cabling, hubs/switches) or if they will be
> able to provide this.
> 
> Another issue that was brought up, was that it would be important for
> systems donated to schools to be consistent, at least in terms of the
> configuration of the OS on each computer.  It may also be important to
the
> recipients of donated computers for the hardware to have a consistent
> appearance.  This is just something we'll have to ask each time.  After
> all,
> we don't want to take the time to get a number of systems set up only to
> discover that the school feels like it makes the room look unattractive. 
I
> don't know how much of this we'll run into, but I could see it being an
> issue for some organisations, which might make helping them challenging. 
> It
> might be a good idea to look into getting a box of inexpensive matching
> keyboards/mice which we could offer to sell at cost to any schools who
> wanted the peripherals to have a consistent appearance, etc.
> 
> The Howard County Library is planning to replace some of their computers,
> and may be interested in donating some to this project.  If the library
> can't donate computers directly, it was suggested that donations of
> computers might be sponsored by people in the community interested in
> helping out.  We are checking with the library to see how they can
> participate.
> 
> Right now, I'm working on contacting the Chesapeake Center for Youth
> Development to see if we have everything they need.  If so, we can go
ahead
> and get two of these donations ready to go, and get them out to the
school.
> It will also be a good idea to make sure the teacher has at least a
general
> understanding of what we'll need to do to maintain the systems once they
> are
> in place.
> 
> Nate (Omegamormegil)