Well in the year 2000, I decided to start a
nonprofit organization. The idea came from watching so many children at my own kids school, as so many of the kids where going home to families that could not afford a computer of their own. As a mother i knew how hard it was for my own family to be able to afford a computer back then. But for other families that where even worse off financially than my own family i knew it was almost impossible for them. So i discussed this with my oldest son and my fiance at the time. My older son had a huge impute into how he felt it was a great idea and he would tell me about how many of his friends could not finish their reports for school or even send email to their friends because their families could not afford a computer not an expensive one or anything but just a regular ordinary computer. I decided that since there was no other organization locally that was
doing this yet , I decided that i would try to do it myself I did not know how successful it would become but i had huge hopes and dreams about it becoming huge one day and providing enough children a computer that it would help with the new educational needs of children back then. Computers back then in 2000 where still so very expensive most good
systems would cost you over $2500 for a decent one, by starting the nonprofit organization i knew it would also prevent good used computer from ending up being thrown away and giving the previous owners of systems the opportunity to instead donate them for a good worthy cause. And if they donated their older systems they would receive a tax deductible
donations slip to take off their taxes yearly. Took me about year to get it started and operational, so many people kept trying to tell me that i could not run it myself, or that i would fail. I kept plugging along knowing in my heart that i was doing the right thing, that i would be helping so many children get a used donated computer and they would then be able to do their homework at home with their parents instead of having to walk or be taken to the
local library just to do their reports or research for school, and by them being at home they where spending that quality time with their parents involved in doing the homework with them. When i first started taking in donations i had a huge overwelming responsive quickly, some where simple systems from private owners and others where businesses that said they where so glad that i started the nonprofit as they hated to throw away so many good used computers. We took in the donations and started by filling one bedroom in my home that was being used for storage and within a month we had filled 3 more rooms full to the ceiling with computers, printers, scanners, and so many parts in boxes. We got donations from companies like Western Digital for hard drives, and Microsoft donated full versions of windows 95 and windows 98. I personally knew something had to be done to advertise that we where available in the city to accept needed donations and to also advertise to the clients needing our services. I called the local newspapers and local news channels and asked them if they where interested in doing interviews about our nonprofit we started. Within a few weeks we appeared on the local news on Channel 3 WWMT news, and We also appeared in the local newspaper Kalamazoo Gazette, We where all so trilled about the free advertising getting our name out there to let everyone know about our nonprofit all my volunteers where so trilled about it too. We started getting more donations in and even some cash donations in too, which where so greatly needed then. As we where trying to get enough funds together to move from out of my home to a building so that we could offer so much more to the clients needing our help. We applied for grants and government loan and grant programs, but we where turned down left and right, we even had a friend who did grants professionally try to help us with applyin