Ever wonder just how much impact a single donation can have?

When team members at SmartSource® Computer & Audio Visual Rentals (“SmartSource,” Hauppauge, NY, www.smartsourcerentals.com) decided to donate 25 laptops to Globetops (www.globetops.com) last year, that question may not have crossed their minds. Recently, however, the company learned just how valuable that donation was to so many.

Globetops – Empowering Those in Need with Technology

Globetops is a non-profit organization with a vital mission: to enable people to actualize their dreams.

Globetops helps the poorest members of the world by providing technology that empowers them to take ownership of their future, assert their rights and create projects that improve the quality of life for their communities.The organization relies on the broader community to donate their unused laptops for people in need. When SmartSource® made its donation, it could only imagine the impact those 25 laptops would be having on so many lives and for so many critical missions.

Business Partner, MAP Digital, Asked SmartSource® to Support Globetops

SmartSource® was asked to support Globetops by Mary Ann Pierce, founder and CEO of one of its business partners, MAP Digital (www.mapdigital.com, New York, NY), an organization that provides its MetaMeetings platform to manage an event’s digital ecosystem, from bandwidth, webcasting and digitized content to data analytics. It was the holiday season, a time when the spirit of giving looms large, and SmartSource®, an organization that believes in giving back, agreed. The company recently learned of the huge impact their donation is having on so many individuals in the U.S. and abroad.

The Impact of the Pay It Forward Philosophy

Globetops shared with SmartSource how the company’s pay it forward philosophy was helping diverse organizations in the U.S., Uganda and India. These organizations ranged from orphanages, gang de-escalation centers, men in transition programs and an inmate rehabilitation program, to a homeless shelter, refugee program, youth development and conservation group, gender equality center, volunteer program, and various educational and training initiatives. Also helped were individuals with a goal to help others.

Here’s how the laptops are making a difference.

  • At the Kaliro Orphanage in Uganda, the laptops are helping the administrators of a once dilapidated and since rebuilt orphanage maintain records and educate over 400 primary school age children in the use of technology.
  • Life Camp, closer to home in Jamaica, Queens, is using its laptops to help “violence mediators” resolve and de-escalate gang conflicts. The camp is celebrating over 365 days without a gang-related, violent incident. You can learn more at: Life Camp, https://peaceisalifestyle.com/about-peace-week/ To lend your support, a go fund account has been set up at: https://www.gofundme.com/lifecampinc
  • Young men, ages 18-25, being helped to get their lives together by the House of Timothy, are using the donated laptops to look for work and complete their education.
  • The Prison to College Pipeline project, a John Jay College program, is using the laptops to rehabilitate inmates who are earning degrees and often, returning to their communities, working in social services, and giving back – a true example of “pay it forward” at work. Learn more at: The Prison to College Pipeline, http://johnjaypri.org/educational-initiatives/prison-to-college-pipeline/. To support the program, donations can be made to the Prison Reentry Institute at: http://johnjaypri.org/about/donate-now/

Other educational initiatives in which the donated laptops are being used include helping students advance in their education in Puttaparthi, India and at the Barefoot College in Tiloniya, Rajasthan, India, which focuses on training and educating women on their rights in life and in the workplace. More information on the Barefoot College is available at: https://www.barefootcollege.org and donations can be made online at: https://www.barefootcollege.org/donate/

Helping Individuals Help Many Others

The laptop donation is also helping address the refugee crisis. One of the donated laptops is being used by Sedrick Nwali, a former refugee who is teaching other refugees how to use a computer in general, and for maintaining contact with their loved ones.

Other examples of individuals using a donated laptop to help others include:

  • Taryme Jefferson, a community worker, who is using a donated laptop in her free time to start a shelter for homeless inmates and help them return to the workforce.
  • A single mother, who is a writer, who is chronicling her struggle in order to help others learn from her struggles and life experience.
  • Tiffany Alexander, the entrepreneur behind Tiffany Alexander’s Organic Baking business, who is using her laptop in her business operations to help bring healthy baked goods to underserved areas across the U.S.
  • Chamia Starks, a volunteer in a community support group collecting food for the hungry and raising funds for a playground construction project, who is using her laptop to finish her college studies so she can better help this volunteer group achieve its goals.
  • Amit Kumar of Varanasi, India, who heads up a Global Youth Development and Conservation Group campaigning for public justice, who is using a laptop to teach local shopkeepers and households about computers and their rights.
  • Pratibha Singh, an administrator with the Social Action and Research Centre (SARC) in Hobart, Tasmania, who is using her laptop to increase her efficiency so she can spend more time helping the victims of abuse. Visit: https://www.facebook.com/SARC-Social-Action-and-Research-Centre-486915777985198/ to learn more.

As you can see, the 25 laptops SmartSource® donated in 2016 are helping many worthy causes benefiting countless lives and communities, and creating a positive impact today and for years to come.