Laptops for Schools & Charities - Nov 2021

Laptops for Schools

During the current Covid pandemic many primary school children have had their education disrupted and as a result, have had to learn on line. Those children who do not have the benefit of the necessary IT equipment at home are disadvantaged as a consequence.

Rotary Beckenham embarked on a project to provide new and refurbished laptops to Junior and Infant Schools in Beckenham, so that children who are disadvantaged or self isolating have access to on-line teaching, either at home or in school.

Appeals were launched locally for donations and for used laptops and after a surprisingly good response, Rotarian Chris Bird undertook the task to refurbish the donated laptops. 

Existing data was wiped, Windows 10 Education loaded and after giving the case a good clean, a Rotary sticker was fixed. The refurbished laptops were then ready to start a new life, being put to good use by local primary school children, learning online at home. 

First deliveries to local primary schools were made in early Nov 2020 and continued through to end Feb 2021.

Thanks to an initial generous donation from a Rotarian, the club has taken delivery of 30 new laptops, which joined the stock of refurbished used equipment to help meet the demand from local primary schools. 

Thanks also to the efforts of the Deputy Head at Eltham College, the club received donations and many used laptops from the parents of pupils at the school. The donations will be used to provide further new laptops for school children from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

The club celebrated Rotary Day on 23rd February 2021 with the announcment that it had provided more than 120 laptops, valued at £30,000, to 21 local primary schools and educational charities, for use by children learning online from home, without their own means of access. Of these, 90 were refurbished by the club. 

Whilst the need exists, the Club intends to try and maintain this project, to source and deliver laptops to local schools for children from deprived backgrounds. 

The project has met three of Rotary’s key areas of focus - Education, Community and by conservation of valuable elements through refurbishment, the Environment. 

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April 2021

The second phase of Rotary Beckenham's laptop project is now underway.The first phase supplied over 120 laptops to disadvantaged primary school children and we seem to have satisfied the immediate demand, especially since children have gone back to school. 

Our second phase concentrates on providing laptops to charities, with an emphasis on children and youth charities, although not exclusively.  So far we have an "order book" for 42 laptops and we are hopeful of supplying these in the near future.

The first three laptops for local childrens charities have been delivered to JusB.

May 2021

In addition to 120 refurbished and new laptops delivered to local primary schools, we have now delivered 40 laptops to local childrens charities.

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July 2021

We have now delivered a further 30 laptops to local children's charities, which brings this total for charities to 70 and 190 overall. 

Pictures are of some of our latest deliveries, below.

David delivers to Hawes Down Primary School

David delivers to Harris Academy.

If any local residents or organisations have serviceable laptops that are no longer needed and would like to donate them for us to refurbish and distribute to needy children and schools,  please contact us on either 07757 058 929 or at peter.braithwaite45@gmail.com.

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