Newspaper Article
“Carson
City nonprofit effort makes people computer literate.”
Volunteers strip, refurbish old machines…
By
Andy Bourelle, RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL Friday,
September 21, 2001 (Carson & Douglas)
In a warehouse in eastern Carson City, men and women sit at desks
stripping computers, reassembling them, testing to make sure the new machines
work and then -- believe it or not -- giving them away to non-profit groups and
low-income residents throughout northern Nevada.
And volunteers are responsible for all the
work, although many of them knew nothing of computers before stepping into
ComputerCorps.
At ComputerCorps which has donated more than $4
million in computer repairs, upgrades and training to residents and nonprofit
organizations throughout the region in the past 3-1/2 years the volunteers get
as much as they give.
"People get so much out of a program like
this. First of all, if they're not computer literate, they get computer
literate," said Petra Lattmann, a volunteer for the Carson City, based
non-profit group. “One of the other things the volunteers talk about is a
sense of community. This is a mini-community. For some of the people, it's a
home.”
Lattmann handles the community relations for
ComputerCorps, but she has gone through the training Just like all the other
volunteers, and it helped her to get rid of what ComputerCorps officials call
"techno fear.”
"In no time at all, I was no longer
baffled by the internal workings of a computer," Latrmann said Husband and
wife Ron Norton and Judy Feaster started ComputerCorps to help people learn
about computers, provide high-quality machines to those that couldn't afford to
buy :' them and keep computers from filling landfills. "Nothing goes to the
landfill," said Norton, program director. '"Our primary goal is reuse
first, of course, but whatever we can't use is recycled.'
TO LEARN MORE:
Information about CornputerCorps is available by calling 883-2323 or on the
Internet at www.computercorps.org
The organization started at a house on Morgan Mill Road'. Its headquarters remains there, but last September the bulk of the operations moved to two 20,000-square-foot warehouses in eastern Carson City.
People from all over Carson
City/Douglas, Washoe, Lyon and Storey counties as well as places even farther
away donate computers, come to volunteer, take affordable computer classes or
take advantage of the pro gram's generosity.
More than 2,000 computer systems have been
turned back into the community. The Brewery Arts Center, Nevada Hispanic
Services and Washoe Tribe; the Boys and Girls Clubs in Carson City, South Lake
Tahoe and north Tahoe; numerous schools and churches and residents from all over
the region have benefited.
That's why the volunteers are so important. More than 500 people have volunteered since the program's inception, totaling about 60,000 hours of volunteer time. There are about 90 active volunteers.
"Everyone here is a
volunteer," Lattmann said.
"There isn't a single person who
gets paid." But the program is growing and more volunteers are required.
"We need, desperately need, more
volunteers," Norton said. "We have to step up the program, and the
demand is so great for computers. We're probably 300 requests behind for
computers and service."
Norton said 400 to 500 computers old and new-- are donated to the program each month. A 20'000 square-foot warehouse is full of computers and parts that volunteers haven't been able to get to yet.
This Saturday, ComputerCorps is holding
an inaugural banquet at Eagle Valley Golf Course to say “thank you” to its
volunteers.
“We’ve had other thanks-yous, but
this is on a much bigger scale” Norton said.
Volunteers get credit for their work
that they can trade for services or computers.
About 150 systems a month are
distributed to people or organizations. Some pay what they can, some volunteer
their time in return for computers and those who can neither afford to pay nor
have the ability to donate time are simply given the computers.
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