For the second year in a row, HealthShare Exchange (web ») employees helped PCF with a full day of volunteering. About 30 employees showed up on a hot late summer day at the beginning of the school year, rolled up their sleeves and helped refurbish, clean, and install about 120 desktop computers at Houston Elementary school on Allens Lane in Mt. Airy. In addition, PCF provided another 40+ laptops throughout the building.
Just carrying them up to their respective floors is a grueling task considering there are no elevators (or A/C, for that matter) and these older computers are quite heavy. Houston teachers were elated as this influx of hardware provided them all with the equipment they need to direct their students to use the District’s intervention tools (educational software to assist in reading, math) plus general Internet access for research.
In addition to installing all the PCF provided computers, two IT experts from HSX also helped Houston’s new computer teacher and TTL get the school’s computer lab ready. They connected and networked all the machines in their lab.
The HSX crew are a joy to work with and they busted their hump. The day was covered in the Chestnut Hill Local and was also featured on ABC news.
The expense of refurbishing (hard drives, memory, etc.) and installation (switches, patch cables, power strips, extension cords, etc.) was made possible by a generous donation from the Matthew P. Pellegrino II Memorial Foundation (web »)
Read the Chestnut Hill Article on the event here » (or download the PDF if the link does not work)
Here is ABC6 News’ coverage of the event.