Dug up a couple of local articles of one of our biggest projects. Are we a one hit wonder? Of course the answer is no! We accomplished much over the years and yet ended up loosing our location due to no fault of our own. Things happen in life. You get knocked down, but you get up again stronger and wiser. We have to move forward and maintain a positive attitude, not resting on past accomplishments alone but looking to the future and the next big project. Let me share a little from recent experience.
I just finished a long hospital stay to deal with some serious health issues. I still have a lot of treatment to go before I'm going to be fully "up" again. But I will be. The experience has inspired me. God worked through me at my weakest moments to have an impact on the health and well-being of a few fellow patients. I was blessed, they were blessed. Even in our weakened states we were able to lean on and provide strength to each other. That is all a charity is folks. Not the strong helping the weak. We are all weak. But together we can help each other and provide hope and encouragement to a broken world.
Do I feel I made a major impact on the world? Not at all. i planted some small seeds at best. But one of my fellow patients just may go on to change the world. We survived. We overcame. Now we can regain our strength and look upward and forward with new insight and wisdom.
Right now the state of the charity is Still in critical condition. But I am not letting it die and I know its supporters and volunteers through the years aren't either. The new goal needs to be to form a new board, and a fundraising committee. If anyone reading this is, or knows of anyone who is talented in these areas please email me at jeffbkill@yahoo.com. Lets get the resources together to resuscitate Computers for Charity.
Computer for Charity was founded in 2008 by Jeffrey Kill who continues to serve as the chairman of the board and the Chief Technology Officer of the organization. Jeff's education and background in computers, employment in the recycling industry and his life experiences led him to start the charity.
Jeff's daughter, Kelbey suffered from a ruptured brain aneurysm when she was 9 years old. This left her mentally and physically handicapped. Before this she was working at 3 grade levels above other children her age and was very adept with the computer. As his daughter struggled through the recovery process, he worked to get her back on the computer, hoping to utilize technology to enhance his daughters recovery. After having to relearn most of what she knew, she eventually became proficient and independent on the computer again. To this day it provides her with a sense of independence, entertainment, and provides a positive source of cognitive stimulation.
These experiences inspired Jeff to find ways to utilize his IT knowledge to help other children and individuals in the community who do not have access to computers to obtain them. He began taking donations of computers and repairing them for members of his local church congregation. Eventually the client base expanded to others in the community and as the word spread others joined the cause. At present time, Computers for Charity serves all of Northwest Ohio as well as some special projects that assist international mission organizations.
Computers for Charity became an official 501 (c3) in 2009 under the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church. Its mission is both environmental and humanitarian as simply stated in its mission statement: “Our mission is to reduce the electronic waste in our landfills by taking donations of computers and related accessories and refurbishing them. These repaired computers can then be distributed to individuals and other non-profits, providing access to computer technology and bridging the 'digital divide'.”
Computers for Charity is comprised of a group of volunteers of various backgrounds who meet weekly to work on computers that are donated from businesses and individuals. We can then place these computers with families and others in need in the community, through other charities that we provide computer vouchers to. We also use our technical skills to provide free consulting services to churches, charities and nonprofits and provide computer solutions that meet their needs when applicable. In the process of this Computers for Charity is able to serve as a place where people from the non-profits (as well as students and other members of the community) can come and learn how to build, troubleshoot and repair PCs as well as gain other computer knowledge.
I've had enough of politics for a while. There are more important issues on the agenda. Not that politics is a game that we can play or not play. Because of the growth of government in the last few years, politics are encroaching on every aspect of our lives.
If your like me your not looking for the government to fix our world. Your already working, paying taxes, raising your kids and donating time and money to causes that you feel will benifit the world you live in. It's a pretty funny thing that many of the big, left leaning charities get most of their money from right wingers. Because we believe in helping people help themselves, we give generously and work with people in all walks of life. So much for us being a bunch of haters.
That is the thing that sets conservatives apart from liberals. Conservatives put their time and their money into what they believe. Liberals historically expect the government to do it. Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household.
It is one of the bitterest ironies of liberal politics today that political opinions are apparently taking the place of help for others. People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition. Conservatives are 18 percent more likely to donate blood as well. No government program can manufacture blood.
Liberal policies hurt private sector non-profits such as ours. Conservative nonprofits tend not to take taxpayer money; liberal nonprofits often are financed over 50 percent with government money. Liberal plans to reduce tax deductions for charitable contributions will disproportionately hurt charities relying on purely private financing, a political maneuver little noticed except by some liberals, who understand it will ensure government, not private donors, decide how tax dollars are allocated. This is politics in America today and it is ugly.
Also consider that people who have earned their money tend to be more generous with it than those who got their money through welfare. The working poor give three times as much money to charity as welfare recipients at the same income level, and they are twice as likely to give and to volunteer. In essence, welfare tends to make people less self-sufficient and responsible, and creates communities where people have no models of hard-working people striving to improve their lives. In short, welfare programs impede virtue in both the person and the community.
Its up to all of us as individuals to change our world. At Computers for Charity, we do it one computer at a time. Your monetary and hardware donations make it possible for us to help bridge a growing digital divide. Without access to the same tools that many of us take for granted the underpriveleged in our communties will always lag further behind when it comes to education, employement, and information. If not our charity, then donate to some charity. What sets Amercans apart from our Socialist European conterpats is that, we take care of our own. We dont need income redistribution scemes lift up our fellow man. We have always done it best through our private institutions.
This is why I say enough of politics. I welcome all of you who believe in helping other people, regardless of your political stripes, to join us in our mission. If your conservative, don't be discouraged. I know you work too hard and pay too much in taxes already. I do too. But you are our core supporters. If you believe that individuals, not government, offer the best solution to social ills, we need your support now more than ever.
If your liberal, I simply ask for you to put your money where your mouth is. Don't just sit and wait for the government to take action and tax someone else to do what needs done. If liberals were as generous with their checkbooks as conservatives we may not even need the big government bureaucracies that end up wasting valuable resources that could be spent helping those most in need. In fact if you really care about the disadvantaged, donate some blood! If liberals gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the U.S. would jump by about 45%
If your not feeling charitable today I invite you to come to church. Even more so than politics, people who attend a house of worship every week are 25 percentage points more likely to give to charity each year than people who never go to church, and give away about four times as much money. And this is not just a question of religious people giving to their churches, as meritorious as that might be: They also give and volunteer significantly more to explicitly nonreligious causes and charities.
Enough of politics already! Lets change our world instead!
Of course the answer is no! We accomplished much over the years and yet ended up loosing our location due to no fault of our own. Things happen in life. You get knocked down, but you get up again stronger and wiser. We have to move forward and maintain a positive attitude, not resting on past accomplishments alone but looking to the future and the next big project. Let me share a little from recent experience.
