Now that Evanston resident Ada Tucker has a computer for her three children, they can learn even when they are not at school.
E-Tropolis Evanston and Computers for Schools held their second computer drive at the Evanston Recycling Center on Saturday. About 30 Evanston residents unloaded old computers at the recycling center, 2222 Oakton Ave., donating a total of 26 hard drives, 26 monitors, several printers and other computer parts.
The drives are organized by E-Tropolis with the help of Computers for Schools, which is a national organization that takes used computers, refurbishes them and then sells them to elementary schools and high schools for reduced prices. But Charles Smith of e-Tropolis said they have not yet decided to which school they will sell the computers collected Saturday.
Administrators at Washington Elementary School, 914 Ashland Ave., and Oakton Elementary School, 436 Ridge Ave., were able to secure computers for students and their families through E-Tropolis’ first computer drive, which collected 200 computers in December. Tucker and other families benefited from this collection, paying $80 per computer.
Most people donated their computers for practical reasons. Evanston resident Chuck Pint said he donated his monitor, an IBM 914, because he bought a new computer. And Robert Lichten, assistant athletic business manager for the Northwestern athletic department, donated the program’s equipment because the department recently purchased new computers, too.
“At this point everyone has something nicer than this,” Lichten said. “If kids could use them, that’s terrific.”
E-Tropolis hopes to turn Evanston into a digital community where people can have home access to computers and the Internet, Smith said. They plan to hold a third computer drive in June to benefit low-income students in the Chicago area. Computers that are Pentium I or better will be taken to one of Computer for School’s refurbishing centers at 3938 N. Pulaski Ave., said Chris Holinger, director of operations.
Smith said he combined efforts with Computers for Schools because they both wanted to provide computers to low-income families in Evanston, Skokie and Rogers Park.
“It’s finding organizations that have parallel ideas, where you can find synergy and cooperation,” Smith said.
Smith also is working with cable and DSL providers such as AT&T WorldNet to make Internet access affordable to Evanston residents, particularly to low-income families with school children grades kindergarten through 12th grade.
“I think that every kid that’s in school should have a computer, period,” he said. “They should have access to the Internet. Computers are getting cheap enough that they are just, in terms of finances, a lot more accessible. But still, if you haven’t had one, it’s hard to understand how much they could mean in your life.”
Smith would also like to get sponsors to pay for families’ Internet service for a year.
Aside from using the recycling center to host the drive, Smith said he wants to use the facility to recycle and refurbish computers. In addition, he said he wants to use it to train people in computer repair and provide jobs for people in the community.
“The schools are excited about what we’re doing with the kids,” Smith said. “It’s an idea whose time has come.”
