The Backstory

A Message from the Founder

This project began with something simple: my love for Linux.

A couple of summers ago, I spent hours tinkering with a broken laptop we had at home. It was slow and unreliable, and crashed if I pressed the trackpoint at the wrong angle. While it would have been convenient to just toss it out, or let it collect dust in a corner of the garage, I saw it as a challenge – and a chance to learn. I took the laptop apart, fixed the issue that was causing the crash, and wiped it clean, replacing the slow Windows OS with the much faster Arch Linux. I had brought the machine back to life, and in the process realized just how much potential there is in old hardware.

That fall, as I was filling out the usual onslaught of beginning-of-the-year paperwork, a question on the device agreement form caught my attention, and it occurred to me that many students don’t have their own personal devices. For now, they had school-issued devices – but after graduating, they would be left without a laptop to use.

My suspicions were confirmed when I read an email from my school about a scholarship program started by counselors to help graduating seniors get laptops for college. That year, over 20 graduating students at my school needed a device. But due to insufficient funding, only two out of the twenty students that applied that year received a laptop.

That’s when it clicked. If I could bring one unused laptop back to life, maybe I could do the same with other discarded devices – and put them in the hands of students who need them.

Since then, this project has grown into something bigger. With help from friends, generous donors, school staff, and dedicated community members, we are collecting used laptops, securely wiping them, installing user-friendly open-source software, and giving them a second life. Then we pass them on to graduating seniors who need them most.

It feels good knowing that I’m helping someone take a step toward their future. In a way, I benefit too – it’s meaningful work, and each revived laptop brings me a fresh wave of fulfillment.