This is all possible as part of our Hardware Grants program, a predominantly volunteer-powered branch of Free Geek committed to getting computers and related electronics into the hands of deserving community-change and community-service organizations.

Thank you donors, volunteers and Hardware Grants interns for making a difference!

Students should be able to provide supervisor contact information, so we can confirm the volunteer hours were completed successfully.  Before getting a free computer, monitor, speakers, mouse and keyboard they must also attend a “Getting Started” class so they will know how to setup and use their computer when they bring it home with them that day.

For more information, or to input your request for a free computer, please visit our Plug Into Portland information page.  If you know a teacher, principal or school director who might be interested in more information, please give them this flyer explaining the program.

Thanks for sharing this with us, Patrick! We can’t wait to hear more about the great things that are happening in your library.

Thats right folks, the whole shebang, for $200!

We have several G5 towers in stock, all in great shape!

• 2GHz Dual G5 Processors
• 2GB RAM
• Apple 17″ Cinema Display Monitor
• Apple USB Keyboard
• Apple USB Mouse

Although they come with no operating system, each of these units supports Mac OSX up to version 10.5 Tiger.

Get ‘em while they’re hot!

"I believe that voting is the first act of building a community as well as building a country. " - John Ensign

Free Geek has recently restructured our governance model, and we are pleased to announce the winners of our recent election for the board positions of Volunteer Representative! Read on to hear from our Board President, Laurel Hoyt.

Dear Free Geek folks,

Thanks for your participation and interest in our first foray into electoral representation. We had four stellar candidates for the two volunteer representative positions newly created on the board, and (although it was close) your ballots yielded up their response. Our newest board members heard about their election yesterday and, showing true dedication, both arranged to show up for last night’s board meeting. They are Larry Lloyd and Jason Owen — if you don’t know them yet, seek them out, because they are great, and if you’re a regular volunteer, they are your voice on the board.

These gentlemen will be more or less creating the position of volunteer representative, which has heretofore existed only in our imaginations. This is what we have so far, in terms of describing how their task will differ from that of the average board member: Volunteer Representative Job Description

I’m sure they will welcome your ideas on how to make sure that the board is informed about what is important to volunteers and vice versa. And the board as a whole welcomes your participation, as well. Our meetings are open (second Wednesdays of the month at 6:15 in the meeting room). And please watch for announcements about changes to the email lists. The council list will be going away, but it will be replaced by a list called (we think) board-discuss, which will host most board-related discussion and planning, and a list called board-announce, for people who want to keep up with the board’s actions without the discussion. As i said, more information about these changes will be forthcoming, as we phase out the council list but continue to strive to make our governance more transparent and accessible.

Thanks to everyone who came to the Town Hall Meeting, to those who planned the Town Hall Meeting, to those who voted and those who ran, and especially to Jessa for putting in Amazonian efforts and making the darn thing work. And congratulations to Jason and Larry, who both promise to be great assets to our board as we move forward.

Geekily yrs,
Laurel

Louisa from SE Uplift shows off a new laptop.

This year we granted a half dozen laptops to SE Uplift to be used by staff in order to support Southeast neighborhoods. The employees at SE Uplift are involved in a variety of organizations and participate on various boards and advisory committees. Laptops allow them to serve their community members in a more efficient and professional manner as much of their work takes place outside of their office headquarters. The mission of SE Uplift is to assist the citizens and neighborhood associations of Southeast Portland to create communities that are livable, socially diverse, safe and vital.

* Free Geek start date: June 2009

* Volunteer hours: 529 and counting!

* Volunteer areas: Tech Support & So Much More!

Evie moved from Virginia to Portland a little over three years ago. She actually visited Free Geek before she moved—she found that she loved it so much that it was one of the first places she became involved with upon arriving in the city.

Evie has volunteered in Tech Support, Outreach, and System Administration. She loves coming to Free Geek during off hours and completing large projects for everyone to use when the return to Free Geek after a weekend. She also has gone to some major tech conferences promoting Free Geek and the importance of safely dealing with e-waste.
“Free Geek gives me freedom to work on projects that are important to the infrastructure and benefit the employees as much as the volunteers,” writes Evie, “Free Geek gives me the ability to work with all different types of hardware and configurations where I can explore new ideas and solve logical problems while learning. I get a real sense of satisfaction when completing projects here. I also love the staff at Free Geek, they have been very open to my ideas and let me play with great old/new/obscure technology.”
One of her favorite memories comes from volunteering for Free Geek at the First LinuxCon where she got to meet and have lunch with Linus Torvalds, one of the main brains behind the Linux kernel.

Evie is a true geek who has been interested in technology “from the womb.” Away from Free Geek she enjoys a variety of geeky pursuits including video games, small electronics projects, retro computing and gaming, phone hacking, space weather, beer tasting, and being a NASA Fan Boy. Go Science!

Thanks Evie!