With students back in school and Summer vacation memories fading, we share a few updates from Laptop Upcycle. Today, just a summary for you, but in the coming weeks look for more detail on each of the following as we hope to reboot our communication efforts.

• Our individual Give/Get operations continue in earnest and the team has now given over 1850 laptops to students in need.
• Speaking of the "team", we have expanded our local support efforts with a new partnership with the Kiwanis of Montclair. The Kiwanis have been supporting students in and around Montclair for years and we're excited to have Ann Bismal, Deborah New, and Luke Pontier working with Cynthia Newlin to coordinate the distribution of laptops to those in need.
• Other partnerships are being renewed and expanding. We recently agreed to partner with the Passaic County Community College to start a Laptop Upcycle at their campus in Paterson, and we have renewed our agreements with Ramapo College and the Essex County Community College Adult Learning Center. This past Summer we joined the Montclair Mutual Aid organization in their Adopt a Mountie program and we were at the Wally Choice Community Center for their back to school event with the Sentinels-16 Association.
• With the Montclair High student back in school our lab volunteer sessions are back online and active. Welcome back! Students are encouraged to join us. Visit the Volunteer page to get started and secure a spot. Thanks to Mike Brown, Mark Zbucki, and Ed Martin in the lab for their continued leadership in helping to educate our volunteers and run the sessions!
• We need your donations! To support expanding demand for laptops and our expanding partner network, please consider donating your lightly used laptops to us. Or, (even better) consider your personal business network and those who may have access to groups of laptops not being used that could be given to students in need. We can make it happen.
  

Thank you for supporting Laptop Upcycle and our mission!

This past Tuesday and Wednesday Mike Brown and Jon Bonesteel were invited by Ms. Donna McGowan at Nishuane Elementary School in Montclair to help them with their technology class. Her students have been learning how computers work and all the parts that compose the technology they use day to day.

We were happy to bring a cart full of various computers and describe all the parts they had only seen pictures of so far and let them take them further apart. It was so fun to demystify it for them and we were also surprised at how much more they already knew!

From Ms. McGowan, "I want to thank you both so much for your visits with our 2nd graders these past 2 days.  The kids definitely had a great time exploring all the desktop and laptop parts, and it was a great way for them to gain hands-on experience with the items they have been learning about."

We thank you Ms. McGowan, and please enjoy the pics she shared with us:

So you had a great holiday season. We did too, except for the whole flood thing, but we're not going there. Happy New Year to you all, and we wish you all the best for 2024. Keep the positive vibes going by considering Laptop Upcycle as you replace old tech with newer faster bits. We'll wipe your data securely (if you haven't already and even if you have we'll wipe it anyway), install a new image on your old laptop, and get it in the hands of a young student who needs it. It makes a difference in a student's life, it keeps the hardware out of a landfill, and it will make you feel good.

That's a win, win, win.

To get the process started, simply click on the link below, fill out the form, and we'll pick it up or you can drop it off. Then you'll get a donation letter/receipt from us. Do it now. Yes, you're a good person, and you're making a difference.

PS - If you are affiliated with (or know) a company and have a LOT of older laptops that are gathering dust, have them donate all of them and then you'll be a really, really, really, good person. We'll give you a hug!

Greetings and Happy October to all! We have been busy in the Lab and out in our community as the school year has kicked in to full gear. Happily, our weekly lab sessions continue to be well attended and we have a new group of energetic young adults under the tutelage of Mike and Ed. 

In our post-pandemic world, the number of direct distributions to students of laptops (Gets as we call them) has decreased from last year. We're not entirely sure what is behind this, but we are working hard to find new channels for Gets by working with our local partners and contacts within the schools. Here are but a few of our recent successes as we look to expand our outreach and expand our education programs.

The United Community Corporation and the Essex County Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs (Newark, NJ) - Just this week we met with the team at the West Side Park complex in Newark to provide 18 laptops for their shared work space in the community center where they will host after school programs for students and training programs with their other partners. Yolanda Loney, the Director of Youth, Family, and Senior Services was excited for our support and we look forward to more activities with her team.

Late this past Summer Laptop Upcycle gained a new partnering organization, the Urban Health Collaborative (TUHC). Summer interns Yanice (Yah-niece) Toone and Sofia Bari, under the tutelage of board members Jon Bonesteel and Frances Smith, did outreach projects and snagged this new contact. Pictured above is Zaire Ali, Director of TUHC, picking up 10+ laptops and 5 monitors slated for community education and student tutoring.

Again, this past Summer, we kicked off an exciting partnership with the Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District's Youth Arts Collective (YAC). The LPCCDYAC (that's a long one) is an arts meets tech education program for youth aged 10-17 that will provide them with knowledge and employable skills needed to be successful in the 21st Century.  Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District's YAC is aligned with our mission of planning, designing, and developing a comprehensive arts and cultural district in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of downtown Newark.  The program is managed by BRND Marketing Group LLC and the lead facilitator is Malik Whitaker of Cement Gallery. The  students represent every ward in the City of Newark, attend public and charter schools and are as diverse as the city itself. Most are from single parent homes. We have students that are bilingual; some have admitted to using art to heal their depression and social anxiety; at least two are currently living in a shelter with their parent; one is diagnosed as legally blind; we have a student athlete and there is at least one learning disorder.  Yet - art is the common denominator.  Most importantly, thanks to Arts Ed Newark, we are able to feed them lunch during the class time of 9am-12pm and for some, this is their first meal of the day.

Laptop Upcycle donated 16 laptops to the YAC for a class in Newark where the students used the laptops to learn:
- Orientation and Intro to Illustration
- From Illustration to Painting
- Graphic Design and 2D Character Design
- 2D Character Design to 3D Animation
- Exploring Special Effects (SFX)
- 3D Printing and Rendering
- Fundamentals and Basics of NFT

After successfully completing the class, the students (with their parents/guardians in attendance) were given the laptops to keep and use for school this Fall. Our Co-founder, Jon Bonesteel, was there to wish them well and deliver the laptops. Thanks so much to Kimberly Ford from the YAC!

Last, but certainly not least, we've been busy with local Montclair organizations and have made some great progress. No photos yet, but soon, we promise.

• Every year for the past 5 we have presented and shared our story with the incoming 9th graders at Montclair High in the Imani program. As one part of their on-going mission to close the achievement gap by collaborating with parents, teachers, and school administrators to provide focused academic and social support for students of color, they host a week long orientation program. Laptop Upcycle was there again this year to offer volunteer opportunities and laptops to those students who needed them to help them start High School with the tools they need.
• Laptop Upcycle has been working with the MFEE and their Navegador program team to support the Spanish speaking community in our schools. Families ans students in need get the technology resources (laptops and free WiFi hotspots) they need from us and the staff and volunteers from MFEE lead the way in supporting those in the program. For us, it's a win win.
• Earlier this year the Kiwanis of Montclair assisted us with a PR campaign in the hopes of reaching more students in need in and around Montclair. In addition to local posted flyers in store and shops the Kiwanis helped raise awareness throughout the community. This Fall, a group of their volunteers have received training from our staff and will be assisting with Gets at our lab. We're happy to be working with them!
  

As we review feedback from our Summer interns on this tired web site in need of update, please see and share our new tri-fold brochure, below and on the About Us page. Our site will be slowly refreshed in the coming weeks for the Fall Back to School season.

We are excited to announce  our newest Laptop Upcycle Board member, Giancarlo Di Lonardo. With his diverse experience in board development and his active roles with various NJ nonprofits, Giancarlo will be a key contributor to our planned growth in Montclair and Northern NJ this Fall and into 2024.

Please join us in welcoming Giancarlo to the team!

Board member Cynthia Newlin has been instrumental in opening new avenues to students in need for us. In addition to great work in Paterson and the Newark Arts School, she coordinated a donation to the Interfaith-RISE organization to assist students who are also refugees settling in the US. This afternoon (from left), Maryam Sorouri, Princess Botu, and Shawnelle Felix joined us in the lab for a training session on setting up Linux Mint on laptops for the students. After our session, the team was given 20 laptops for refugee students that they support in various schools. Happy Holidays to all, and Happy Spring!

Will January finish itself already? Sorry, just had to get that off our chests.

After a great 2022, Laptop Upcycle is looking forward to a 2023 full of growth and sharing of our mission both in Montclair and our neighboring communities. To succeed, we could use your help, and it’s really simple.

Can you network for us?

Last year we gave out close to 400 laptops to students who needed them for their homework at home. In the course of preparing these laptops for distribution, our lab volunteers put in hundreds of hours of time giving back to the community, and donors (both individual and corporate) were so generous in donating nearly new laptops to our cause.

Here’s what you can do -

Our success to date has had one common denominator, personal and organization connections within the community. If you can help us by considering your personal network and how your friends and business relationships could be brought to bear in assisting with getting a new laptop into the hands of a student, we (and they) would greatly appreciate it. Here are some examples of what you could do:

• Are you engaged in the education community in or around Montclair and do you experience groups of students or schools that have a technology gap? We understand that many districts loan chromebooks for students to use, but we have found that ownership and the power of laptops that are more full featured help students. Work with us to target these underserved communities by first letting us know about them and second, putting us in contact with those on point there so we can make a plan to help.
  
• Within your work network do you know of businesses or organizations that have large numbers of laptops not being used? We are looking for donations and businesses usually have blocks of similar machines that make it easier for us to process them en mass. We can provide documentation of our data wipe procedures or we would happily accept laptops without the hard drives in them, which our volunteers can replace.
• Finally, speaking of volunteers, do you have or know of someone who has some time to contribute to our cause? We can always use adult help in the areas of business development, public relations and social medial support, board development, and lab session volunteers. Basically, we know you have a super power, and if you could send a little bit of that magic our way, we would appreciate it.

These are but 3 examples. If you have other ideas or would like to chat about those above, please pop us an email at [email protected].

You can make a difference in a young students life.

Yesterday we shared a thank you to those corporate donors and local partners that helped us have a great 2022 supporting our mission in and around Montclair. Certainly, distributions to local students like the one today of 26 laptops (above) from us via Succeed2gether would not be possible without such partners. Laptop Santa is VERY happy!

However, that is only part of the story. Our ability to deliver laptops like the photo above, or to achieve any of the other successes we realized this year would not be possible with out the hard work and focus of our lab volunteers led by Mike Brown. Mike and his team supported by Mark Zbucki, our technical lead, hold two sessions each week where High School volunteers do the work that often goes unnoticed in our lab.

Student volunteers check in, test, securely wipe any data on donated laptops, install operating systems, test (again), and clean each laptop that comes in to our doors. All of this is done under the the auspices of Mike. There are many small steps along the way in preparing laptops to be upcycled. Each one is important and each volunteer plays a part in our success.

So, here's Part 2 -

To Mike and his team of 100% volunteers, we thank you. Without your commitment to our cause we would not be able to make the positive difference we do in and around our community.

Happy Holidays All!

And we mean it -- straight from the Laptop Upcycle Lab in the basement of the United Way building. We are grateful to everyone who thought of us so that we could provide laptops to kids in need. Your generosity has allowed hundreds of students to get their work done.

And (drumroll please), we are thanking these organizations for their thoughtful 2022 thinking that’s helped so many:

Bloomberg Philanthropies
The Electronic Access Foundation
Boston Consulting Group
Essence Global Advertising
Guardian Data Destruction
T-Mobile Communications
The Sentinals-16
MFEE
Succeed2gether
Celonis

Finally, thank you to New Jersey Community Capital (owners of the old United Way building) for renting their generous space (even during construction!) As we enter the Season of Giving, we know that more students will need laptops to get their basic education.  Please consider adding your name to our thankful and thinking list for 2022 with a donation or proposal.