First, before we get to our ASK, we want to thank you for all your support. You have contributed in so many ways. From single personal donations of equipment or funds, to larger business/block donations, and even just word of mouth recommendations, your support has allowed us to:

• Give more than 1100 laptops to local students in need.
• Share more than 150 free WiFi hotspots with families who otherwise would not have it at home.
• Support over 135 High School volunteers in our lab, contributing more than 3500 hours of service to the community.
• Responsibly repurpose electronics that would have otherwise gone to a landfill, saving approximately 2 tons of waste.

In addition to helping individual students as they request laptops, we recently equipped the STEAM lab at Buzz Aldrin Middle School with 25 MacBook Pro laptops. We also upgraded the technology lab at Frank J. Napier, Jr. school in Paterson, NJ.  All this tied to your generous support. 

But, we want to do so much more for those in need. The challenges in our and neighboring communities continue, and many students STILL don’t have the tools they need to succeed in school.

Yesterday on a beautiful Spring day Cynthia and Jon delivered 52 freshly refurbished small form factor i3 desktops to the Frank J. Napier, Jr. school in Paterson, NJ. Principal Derwin Smith and Vice-Principal Jennifer Woods will use the new workstations to both replace the aging XP vintage desktops in their computer lab and update the devices driving the smart boards in classrooms. Cynthia Newlin, Laptop Upcycle Board member and long time volunteer, established the relationship with the technology focused school and has led the way by helping us deliver over 30 laptops two months ago directly to students in need at the school. The updated lab will allow teachers at the school top better support their tech programs at the school.

As always, this was a team effort and we have a number of people and organizations to thank. In addition to the amazing work by Cynthia, we appreciate:

• The Electronic Access Foundation (EAF) and Greg Campbell for the supply of small footprint devices they shared with us via our partnership within the Digitunity network.
  
• Our lab volunteers led by Mike Brown who worked so hard to wipe, renovate, update, and clean the donated desktops, and our technical lead Mark Zbucki who helped us with the updates to support the equipment.
• Finally, we are exceedingly grateful to Principal Smith and Vice-Principal Woods for being such positive advocates in support of their community and students. We are pleased to work with such powerful leaders of public school education in Northern NJ. Thank you!

Join Laptop Upcycle as a Summer Intern this Summer and make a difference for young students locally. We are looking for a rising High School Senior or older volunteer to help us expand. Here is the detailed job description:

The successful candidate will work with the Laptop Upcycle Board of Directors to leverage existing promotion and communication channels and explore/develop new tools to expand regional awareness of Laptop Upcycle and promote our mission in three (3) primary areas.

• Seek out new placement of our free laptops (find students who are in need of laptops and organizations that require larger numbers of machines) to individuals and groups (schools/nonprofits).
• Locate and energize donations of equipment (laptops) and funds - individual and especially laptop donations from businesses and corporations.
• Help identify and recruit volunteers to build our internal support organization (find and engage those with interest in our mission).

In this role the intern will also document and report on progress and challenges. They will help instantiate a long term engagement processes (design tools and processes others can use) to support Laptop Upcycles long term growth. This is a communications and networking internship which for the right candidate will be rewarding and provide excellent experience for future opportunities.

We are a 100% volunteer organization, and we can not monetarily compensate you in this role; however, we will provide you with a high quality laptop which you may keep upon the internship completion. Any questions, or to apply for this internship, email us at [email protected].

MIke and his team have been busy in the lab. Read about us here in this month's issue of My Suburban Essex!

This Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate) Laptop Upcycle wants to put a laptop under the trees of students in need. Laptop Santa knows that students who have their own laptops for school, projects, personalization, ownership and accountability -- use them and succeed!   Throughout December we'd like your help to brighten the Holiday Season for a local student who cannot afford a laptop for school. 

If you know of a middle or high school student who could use a laptop and can't afford it, let us know.  Our elves are standing by to deliver a refurbished and wrapped laptop that's ready to go under the tree. 

You can help! 

1) Identify students who would benefit and appreciate a holiday gift of a laptop by filling in this short form.

2) Donate a laptop (used or new)

3) Donate funds to support this program!

If you have any questions or would like to suggest a partnership or idea, send us an email at [email protected]. Deadline:  Dec 22, 2021

Thank you for being a "giver" this holiday season and giving a student in need a laptop to succeed. In the past 5 years Laptop Upcycle has given out over 1000 laptops to low income and special needs students. We'd like to end this year with a mighty Ho ho ho!

The Laptop Upcycle elves

We at Laptop Upcycle are passionate about closing the technology gap in our schools. In pursuit of this goal we rely upon our volunteers to delivery on our mission. In fact, we are 100% volunteer driven, with a working Board of Directors.

This Fall, we delivered over 110 laptops to students headed back to school and in our 5 years based in Montclair we have given out 1378 laptops, all volunteer powered.

We are excited to announce our most recent new Board member, Joshua Crandall. Josh is a 25-year resident of Montclair and father to 3 daughters who went through the Montclair schools. He works in technology in financial services. You may also know him as "Conductor Josh" since he is also the founder and CEO of CleverCommute - an online information service for suburban commuters. 

Josh brings a passion for education and technology to our team and we look forward to his fresh insights as we expand our partnerships and market in and around Montclair.

Please join us in welcoming Josh!

PS - Are you interested in joining us (and Josh)? We have many opportunities and would love to talk.

This week we draw focus on a couple of corporate partners, Laptop Legends, who have made repeat and significant donations to us.

First, we welcome the Boston Consulting Group in Summit, NJ as our newest Laptop Legend. They have now made three significant donations of their lightly used laptops to Laptop Upcycle. It would have been easy for them to simply ship them to a bulk recycling shop, but instead they chose us! Our student volunteers wipe the drives with industry approved software and renovate the laptops for other local students. For those laptops that may be damaged, our team mixes and matches the components to make working systems and we responsibly recycle the rest.

A heartfelt thank you to The Boston Consulting Group!

Is your company currently holding a storage closet full of laptops or do they (gasp!) send them off to corporate clearing house INSTEAD of putting them back to work and in the hands of students who need them? Please contact us.