Blog Archives

Hotspots for Those In Need

7/24/2022

Good News!

Laptop Upcycle has successfully qualified as a participating organization of the T-Mobile Project 10 Million to help provide internet access to all students who need it. This means we have 240 hotspots to hand out to any family in need in our local area. Go to our Get Technology page to see if you qualify.

If you own one of the more than 230 existing hotspots that we have given out in the past 5 years thanks to the generous grants from the Don Katz and Leslie Larson Foundation, please note that these have been disabled to due to a network consolidation by T-Mobile, and you are eligible for a replacement.

We have scheduled a delivery session for July 30 from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM in the Laptop Upcycle Lab at 60 South Fullerton Ave, Montclair (use the side entrance and ring the bell if the door is locked). Bring your old hotspot and get a replacement. Or apply and get approved online this week. If you are not available this Saturday, please contact us and we can arrange another date/time to meet you.

All hotspots have filters for safe family browsing and are totally free with enough bandwidth for school work. Want to learn more? Check out https://www.t-mobile.com/business/education/project-10-million

See you in the Lab.

Your Laptop Upcycle Team

More Girl Power, More!

7/5/2022

Recently we highlighted the initiative championed by our Board member Cynthia Newlin to provide laptops to the Girl Power group led by Special Education Teacher Ms. Renee' Cleaves-Bryant and Paraprofessional Ms. Lydeasha Crawford, who teach at Public School #16 in Paterson, NJ.

This past month on June 15th we hosted the teachers and students (above) in our lab for an excellent working session and inspirational presentations by two special guests. Amelia Wong (right, in the photo here) lives in Verona and is a junior at Morris Hills High School there. She joined our group of lab volunteers led by Mike Brown after learning about Laptop Upcycle in the Suburban Essex article about us back in March. Amelia is passionate about supporting diversity in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) in our schools and in addition to her introduction to the topic that she shared with the young women from School #16, she so impressed the teachers in attendance, that they invited her to the school for a more expansive discussion of the topic for a larger audience. Amelia worked up the presentation herself and led an active session that wowed the class. See Amelia in action below and the group photo after they finished up. Thanks Amelia!

But Amelia was just the start of our great session on the 15th. After a walk through of the initial set up of the Girl Power students new laptops by Jon (the only "Y" chromosome in attendance), we were all treated to a Zoom presentation by Chattie Broadnax McGill. Ms. McGill is a Director at Kontoor Brands in Greensboro, NC and has a degree in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State University. Kontoor Brands may be best known for Wrangler jeans, but they do so much more. Ms. McGill joined the company after graduating from college and shared her unique wisdom as both a woman and a person of color in the technology and business world. She also discussed some of the new hot areas of STEM that the students may wish to consider. The School #16 young women were enthralled by her presentation and asked a number of great questions.

Hotspots for Those In Need

More Girl Power, More!

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