We know we're early in the celebration, but we wanted to get a jump start to acknowledge all of the women who support our mission. We at Free Geek are so incredibly thankful of the women staff we have, and are proud to be a non-profit with an abundance of women in leadership roles within our organization. Not to mention, we have a ton of support from women volunteers, students, tech donors, shoppers, and more. Without women in our community, we would never have been able to accomplish the amount of work we have thus far. So thank you to our women supporters! You make Free Geek closer to achieving its goals every single day.

We hope to show our support by showcasing to our community some of the women who make the Free Geek mission possible! Check out below what women in our community have to say about what they love about Free Geek. We will be updating this throughout the week, so check back to hear even more responses!

Claire Willett, Grantwriter & Development Consultant

"I'm a grants consultant, which means a lot of my freelance work over the past 15 years has been coming into an organization who has brought me in to do a specific job, and frequently having to convince a room full of old white dudes that I actually am an expert in the thing I'm an expert in - yes, even though I'm a woman, yes, even though I'm only in my thirties, yes, even though I have a big tattoo on my arm and I'm wearing Star Wars earrings.  I grew up in Portland, in a tech family (my father was one of the founders of Mentor Graphics) and we've been taking our old computers to Free Geek for as long as I can remember. I think my brothers even volunteered here. I always had a sort of image of it in my head as being a very male environment, because my experiences with the tech sector as a whole have reflected that, so there was a part of me that I think was braced to find an environment where I would feel highly conscious at all times that I was a woman. I was amazed how wrong I was. 

It's not just that an organization needs women in leadership roles, women as department heads, women doing jobs that often get gendered as "male" (management, tech, finance), women crafting programs and policies, women in every level of the organization making themselves visible both internally and externally; it's also that you need men who listen to them take the voices and perspectives of every colleague with equal weight no matter the gender, men who don't practice toxic masculinity behaviors in the workplace (talking over women in meetings, "mansplaining" a colleague's own area of expertise back to her), men who have healthy and positive friendships with women/nb coworkers without making them feel marginalized or othered.  I've never worked anywhere that I felt had a better balance of both those things than Free Geek does.

I really appreciate that I just get to be a person here - whether I'm in a staff meeting, or playing Dungeons & Dragons with my coworkers. I've never worked anywhere that I felt so respected and taken seriously - where people are thanked and acknowledged for their work, invited directly to weigh in on issues that affect the whole staff, and have a lot of opportunities to make their voices heard. And that starts at the top. That comes from having a male CEO who is generous with praise and affection for staff, who shows emotion in front of them when he's thanking them for their hard work, who crafts organizational structures with their wellbeing in mind (like the first sexual harassment policy I've ever seen that seems genuinely more interested in creating a safe and thriving environment for everyone than in merely reducing organizational liability).

It's honestly the best job I've ever had. I really, really love it here."

Sara Rasmussen, Digital Inclusion Manager

"Free Geek is a quirky place and I love it. Anybody can be a nerd here. And everybody's a nerd about something. There's a rich variety of nerdry here, from the D&D peeps to the Star Wars folks to the HP fans, and more. For me there's a deep intersection between fandom and technology---many of us probably grew up on the forums!! I love the constant connection between our culture and our daily work of resourcing the community with computers, and with digital literacy skills. Because having a computer and internet at home isn't just about homework, or getting job skills. Of course, that's important, but it's in pursuit of our passions that those skills often develop. I was obsessed with Harry Potter as a kid. So for me that meant learning how to produce a podcast, so I could talk about the fandom, and it meant learning how to build a website, so I could showcase my obsession. Who knew I'd later work in tech?! There's so much you can explore when you have access to tech. Whether it's with folks attending our Podcasting Basics class, or kids getting their first laptop through Plug into Portland, I love that we can share in that at Free Geek."

Amber Rose Forbes, Chief of Staff

"My favorite part of working at Free Geek is being surrounded by other professional women and feeling supported by all my coworkers. Our management team is 50% women which means you don't feel like the odd person out when you look around the room. You know women are involved in critical decision making which is rare in the Tech Industry."