FreeIT - Stafford.

[FreeITstafford]

Mahoosive thanks again to our friends at MPFT for their regular donations of end-of-service laptops.
We've used these to change 130 lives since August

 

[FreeITstafford]

A delivery of 5 of your unwanted PC's to St. Paul's today will see us ending another busy week at 1,077 refurbished devices

 

[FreeITstafford]

It's the end of another busy week here at Free I.T. HQ

We've now fixed up and rehomed 1,097 of your unwanted gadgets

This week we helped:

Hearts And Hands
Jobs-22
Catch-22
Beacon Church
Staffs County Council children & families service

 

[FreeITstafford]

If we were charity registered we'd have to publish our accounts, but we're not, but that doesn't matter. We're completely transparent about our incomings and outgoings and we already submit those to our sponsors. Our project simply would not have survived or grown without the help of all of you lovely people, it's your cash that's paid for absolutely everything.
Our fiscal year accounts so far show a total £4,000 of income through both sponsorships and one-off donations, of which we've spent £3,838 up to today, we always leave enough to pay a month's rent (£162) on our storage locker just in case.
This has paid for the above rent, plus buckets and buckets of parts and consumables that are essential to our work. Every so often you'll see us post about the things we've bought, to give you some idea of the variety, but it would be very boring reading if we listed every sheet of paper, every battery, every charger, every weird adapter, every hard drive, every software licence, every flyer, every no no no STOP...
As many of you are aware non-profits can't actually register as a charity until their income reaches £5,000 a year, at which point they are legally obliged to do so.
With our regular sponsorship income alone we're on track to reach £4,800 by the end of our accounting year, late next February. That's an increase on our last end of year which was £4,500 all wrapped up, and that's before we take other donations before next February in to account.
If we increase our sponsor portfolio by just one more and continue to sustain those equally important one-off donations and quirky inventive fund raisers, we'll have the key to unlock the potential that a charity number might bring, by the end of 2024.

 

[FreeITstafford]

Thanks to you lovely people, our volunteers, everyone who's shared our posts, everyone who's donated cash or devices, with all your help we've now refurbished and rehomed 1,100 of your unwanted internet ready gadgets
Today we helped 3 young people change their lives, through referrals from our friends at Staffordshire County Council

#helping #community #inclusion #donate #newstarts #changinglives #stafford #staffordshire

 

[FreeITstafford]

We're making HUGE steps with our local authorities and we can't wait to tell you about the deal we're about to sign.
You'll see for yourselves very soon, but it'll be explosive for our throughput and our credibility.
Watch this space!

 

[FreeITstafford]

Total cost to restore these two e-waste laptops: £20.
We don't think that's a bad punt given the lives they have now changed.
Your donations towards our parts paid for these keyboards, find out how to support us at http://freeitstafford.org/funding


#donate #laptoprepair #laptoprefurbished

 

[FreeITstafford]

Total cost to replace knackered keyboard and battery on this laptop: £25.
YOU made this happen.

www.freeitstafford.org/funding

#donate #reuse #changinglives #BetterTogether

 

[FreeITstafford]

Don't forget, we're teamed with www.yoursimpal.com
We're working together to provide equipment and connectivity across the country.
If you, or somebody you know, can't afford an internet connection, SimPal can provide 6 months pre-paid portable wi-fi hotspots.
Please show them your love by following here:
https://www.instagram.com/yoursimpal/
https://www.facebook.com/yoursimpal
https://twitter.com/YoursimPal
and if you need their help, let them know we sent you

(please note although their publicity is cancer based, they will also now help anyone in genuine digital poverty, their facebook has not been updated in a while so we recommend following on the other two platforms)

 

[FreeITstafford]

You are all so kind.

This is just a selection of the desktop PC's you lovely people have gifted to us over the last couple of weeks, shout if you spot yours!
They will all now go through our process and have a full service and data wipe.
We'll then group each of them with a 24" Samsung HD monitor, and mouse and keyboard, which were kindly sourced for us by House of Bread, and find them new homes as a complete setup.
5 more lives are about to be changed.
Your kind cash pledges will pay for the thermal paste, coin batteries, wi-fi adapters, software licences, and replacement hard drives that our tech guys might need along the way.
We couldn't do any of this without you all

 

[FreeITstafford]

We don't begrudge anyone seeking the same outcomes as us, but we'll point out a few key differences between ourselves and the other local scheme you may have become aware of:
- We will accept your donation in any condition, complete or not
- We don't require you to sanitise or erase your device in advance
- You don't need to book an appointment to donate
- We will show you exactly where your donations go and we can account for every single one
- We won't spend £42,000 a year of council tax payer's money on facebook adverts

And more importantly:
- Their own staff are now turning to us for help (63 so far)
- We receive no financial support, promotion, or even recognition from any of the funders or authorities in charge of that scheme, and there are many

We'll help anyone who needs us, and you're of course welcome to donate to whichever project you wish, but if you'd prefer we handle it, please only use the donation points listed on our website at www.freeitstafford.org/donate

 

[FreeITstafford]

Meet our Adam.

Fresh from the vestry and the maternity ward, and working in the care sector, Adam is our latest recruit (and he's already questioning his choices).
He's been doing some of our fetching and carrying, parts salvage, sourcing our packing materials, and chipping in at repair cafes, but he can mostly be found hidden in a corner banging his head up a wall dribbling and muttering "give me servers".

When asked to describe himself in one line, Adam says "epic, handsome, and damn right awesome", we'd have to agree.
Huge respects to all the volunteers out there, whatever your discipline, society is indebted to you.

#volunteer #volunteerappreciation

 

[FreeITstafford]

We are having one of our busiest weeks EVER here at Free I.T. HQ.
Demand is unprecedented and with so many referrals coming in now from local authority agents working with families in digital poverty, our throughput is sky rocketing.
1,126 lives changed.
And we're not done for the week yet, we've another 3 laptops off to a very well known charity tomorrow... watch this space.
And we may even smash 1200 by Xmas.

 

[FreeITstafford]

Thanks Anthea!
Yeah, we do celebrity endorsement now, don't you know.

 

[FreeITstafford]

We're pleased to let you know that we've just added CPRE Staffordshire - Hedgerow Heroes to the list of great causes we've helped!
Three of your unwanted laptops have gone on to help this amazing charity in administrating their conservation projects.
We couldn't do any of this without you all!

 

[FreeITstafford]

A massive massive thank you to everyone who's donated their unwanted laptops this week.

Our tech guys have been busy preparing those for their new lives, and here's 4 of the results so far, all ready to go!

Thank you also to our sponsors who paid for two of these to have jazzy new 128GB SSD hard drives and fresh CMOS batteries fitted.

We couldn't do any of this without you all

#donate #recycle

 

[FreeITstafford]

A small note of sentiment from all of us.
It's inevitable that we'll reach charity status if things go on as they are.
Let's just say that after much discussion behind the scenes we are 'excited, but dubiously excited' about this prospect. None of us here have ever been through this process and we're still learning every day.
Little did we know how a single facebook post back in January 2021 could open such a huge can of worms and reveal such a myriad of poverties and wasteful behaviour, that none of us will even try to escape our moral responsibilities for, given the skills we have to offer.
We're about to welcome a new sponsor on board which, providing we can maintain our other unique fund raisers, could finally tip our income over the £5K threshold at the tail end of 2024. Keep your eyes on our page for the upcoming details of that one!
Of course, this doesn't mean we won't be accepting any additional sponsorships

and in truth, if we're going for it, we might as well really go for it.
We all just want our followers, friends, supporters, to keep in mind that whether it's next year or years from now, it is only the collective project itself that becomes a charity, and we will all remain real people with names, a bunch of decent people with niche skills merely striving to be the change we all want to see, through a shared hobby we can show to you lovely people.
We'll all be keeping our day jobs, we won't be taking salaries, we'll always remember our community roots, and frankly nothing within our team will be different at all, only the formalities of registering our accounts online, which we already keep anyway.
A huge thanks to everyone who's been a part of our growth (and the new sponsor who's about to be) for propping us up through cash bungs, standing orders, buying us ko-fi, random one off pledges, those of you who've shared our good news and expanded our reach, those who've donated your equipment, and those who've taken it from us, for allowing us to help those neglected corners of society we might otherwise have missed.
What a journey!

 

[FreeITstafford]

 

[FreeITstafford]

We've been bursting to tell you all about this!

We've partnered with Staffordshire County Council and EEE4 and we've been given unprecedented first refusals and the right to rummage through the I.T. containers at Stafford and Cannock tips.

We bring you our collaborative "TechCycle" project!

Now we no longer have to tell people "don't take it to the tip", because it won't matter. Effectively those I.T. containers will become two new donation points for us.

We'll be followed closely by EEE4 who will turn anything remaining in to work skills and employment opportunities!

 

[FreeITstafford]