60 High-End Laptops to Three Schools

On August 20th, PCF Western suburbs co-founders Ashwin and Srikar, along with their new volunteer Divyesh G., had the opportunity to visit three Philadelphia public schools to distribute a total of 60 laptops. Over the summer, the duo contacted local area companies and organizations to solicit the computer donations. In the end, they acquired about 120 great laptops, many of them with touch screens, lots of memory and crisp displays. Ashwin and Srikar cleaned the equipment [...]

PCF Receives Phila. Dept of Commerce Grant

The Philadelphia Children's Foundation has received a $30,000 Grant from the Philadelphia Department of Commerce. The grant was part of the StartupPHL initiative, which uses public money to match investment in Philadelphia’s innovation ecosystem. PCF received the grant to fund two efforts: 1) our "Tech-Masters" (a.k.a. "IT Support Teams") program which creates and nurtures small IT Support teams inside schools to install and maintain our donated equipment, and 2) computer literacy teaching (to larger cohorts of students in [...]

Five Below Back-to-School Drive

Five Below has been incredibly supportive of PCF by organizing two separate customer donation drives at various Philadelphia area locations. Altogether, these drives have amounted to several thousand dollars in toys and much needed supplies. Earlier this year, the Easter drive was a huge success which enabled several schools to create incentive programs aimed at improving behavior among students. Most recently, Justin Strycharz and regional manager Craig Ridgell once again organized a customer donation drive, this [...]

Five Below Customer Donation Drive

Justin Strycharz (l) and Craig Ridgell In the early Spring, PCF received a call from Justin Strycharz at Five Below asking if we would like to participate in their annual Easter Drive. PCF would be the recipient of goods purchased and donated by Five Below customers during checkout at regional stores. We replied that we'd love to participate figuring we would receive a few boxes of goods that we would divvy up among [...]

600 Hot Dogs Anyone?

Nothing marks the end of the school year like cooking 600 hot dogs in the summer heat at Emlen Elementary! Although somewhat outside of PCF's technology focused mission, we have helped Emlen with this fun event for the last three years. We love doing it and, besides offering assistance to the great staff at Emlen, it is a great way to say goodbye to the students we've worked with (and whom are off to middle [...]

June 9th, 2017|Categories: PCF News, Volunteering|Tags: , |

PhillyKids is Looking for Part-Time Worker/s

The Philadelphia Children's Foundation is looking to fill a part time position as soon as possible. Philadelphia Children’s Foundation Elementary School Technology Program Development and Instruction Position Description Background PCF is a non-profit organization of people who passionately believe that tomorrow’s leaders need computer skills today.  Many inner-city households have no or no working computer, and their children often go to schools in the same boat: many classrooms have few or no working computers to assist in [...]

PCF’s New State-of-the-Art Refurbishing Process

We could have used a few different titles for this post such as "How To Save Yourself 60+ Minutes Per Machine", or "Fast and Error-Free Refurbishing" or "How DAO Technologies Saved PCF !" among others. PCF has been incredibly fortunate to have received support from DAO Technologies this Fall. DAO devised a very practical, state-of-the-art way to refurbish computers or to update those already installed: Rather than configure each machine individually, we now create a [...]

Support from FIS Global

Out of the blue, PCF received a letter and checks from FIS Global employees totaling nearly $700. As per the letter, the office was moving to another location and furniture and paintings were auctioned off to employees with the proceeds going to a good cause. We are grateful they chose PCF and we will make sure the money goes to good use (we are currently actively refurbishing computers for the new school year) !

September 20th, 2016|Categories: PCF News|

Outdoor Classroom & Painting at Emlen

PCF was contacted by the Land Health Institute to assist with an outdoor classroom area and painting of the annex building at Emlen elementary. PCF has a long history with Emlen and LHI so we were thrilled to assist. On a very hot and steamy day in August, PCF's Jan Deruiter brought a car full of tools for volunteers, chainsaw, painting supplies, etc. and spent three days volunteering with various volunteers under the guidance of [...]

August 16th, 2016|Categories: PCF News|Tags: |

PCF in the Chestnut Hill Local

A long article about PCF, written by Sue Ann Rybak, was published in The Chestnut Hill Local today. Sue accompanied PCF's Jan Deruiter at a recent 3D printing class at Emlen Elementary in East Mt. Airy. Thank you Sue for your in depth article and raising awareness of the urgent need in our public schools and the work PCF does for our public neighborhood schools. View the article on the Chestnut Hill Local website. If [...]

School Front Office Technology

At PCF, we spend most of our time inside Philadelphia public school classrooms. Over the course of the last couple of years, we have spent countless hours inside roughly 150 classrooms in schools all over Philadelphia. While many rooms are OK, or even 'fine', quite often we experience: rooms without enough power to operate a vacuum cleaner (not that we offer cleaning services but you get the point) outlets that are so old that you [...]

March 29th, 2016|Categories: PCF News|

PCF Supports “The ITEM” With Laptops

Philadelphia is lucky to have a program that assists post high-school minorities and women in the field of technology.  The Item (which stands for "Inclusive Technology & Entrepreneurship Movement") has regular meet-up meetings where they discuss technology and get hands-on experience. At a recent meet-up, The Item got into programming and were looking for laptops for five of their their members. Another organization put them in touch with PCF. We gave five of their aspiring [...]

March 26th, 2016|Categories: PCF News, Take Home Computers|

Helping to Put Ex-Offenders to Work

PCF is proud to be working with PAR-Recycleworks whose mission is to responsibly recycle electronics and through this process, help pay for salaries and job skill development for formerly incarcerated men and women in order to support their productive re-entry back into society. Check out this recent Chestnut Hill Local news article (which also references PCF). Some of the equipment that is donated to PCF  does not work plus sometimes our machines simply stop working [...]

March 9th, 2016|Categories: PCF News, Sponsors|

Computer Pickup at Health Partners Plans

PCF has been truly fortunate with the support we've received, and continue to receive, from Health Partners Plans. They have supported us financially with generous annual donations plus most of the 2,000 machines PCF has received over the years have come from HPP network hospitals such as Aria Health, Einstein Medical Center, Hahnemann University Hospital, Temple and others. On a cold day in January, HPP supplied PCF with an additional 50 computers, monitors and supplies [...]

January 20th, 2016|Categories: Corporate Donation, PCF News, Sponsors|

Chikara Donates 80 Event Tickets to Public Schools

CHIKARA has generously donated 80 tickets for PCF to distribute to 4 public schools in the Northwest. The event looks like a lot of fun and PCF has chosen Emlen, Houston, Jenks, and Henry schools to choose how they wish to distribute the tickets to students and their families. Saturday, December 5th, 2015 Doors open at 6 pm; first match at 7:00 pm CHIKARA @ The 2300 Arena 2300 S. Swanson St., Philadelphia, PA 19148  Google maps (the [...]

November 24th, 2015|Categories: Corporate Donation, PCF News|

$1,000 Community Partner Grant from Wells Fargo

On Monday November 9, 2015, PCF received an unrestricted operating grant for $1,000 from Wells Fargo. The ceremony was held near King of Prussia and the photo above shows PCF's director Jan Deruiter accepting the award. The money will be used to purchase supplies for refurbishing computers as well as to cover operating expenses. PCF has been fortunate to have received annual support from Wells Fargo. This is our 7th such grant and we would like [...]

November 12th, 2015|Categories: PCF News, Sponsors|Tags: |

Support PCF by Shopping at Amazon

Now you can support kids while you shop!  PCF is now accepting charitable donations through the AmazonSmile Foundation. We are pleased to announced that PCF is now officially listed as a partner charity through the AmazonSmile Foundation.  This means that Amazon will donate a percentage of any purchase made from https://smile.amazon.com/ch/20-5356792 directly to the Philadelphia Children's Foundation. Shopping on AmazonSmile is simple, and making sure your donation goes directly to PCF is even easier. You use [...]

September 17th, 2015|Categories: PCF News, Sponsors|

PCF in The Notebook: Out with the old? Not so fast

PCF was featured in an article in The Notebook, Philadelphia public schools' independent voice for parents, educators, students, and friends of Philadelphia Public Schools. In the article, PCF Director and Principal Thomas from Emlen were interviewed about the beginnings of what became PCF's Classroom Computers Program. Out with the old? Not so fast District schools like Emlen and Robeson are taking donated technology and making it work in classrooms By Paul Jablow on Mar 24, 2015 Jan Deruiter [...]

March 24th, 2015|Categories: Classroom Computers, PCF News|Tags: |

Turn & Burn Regatta

The Annual Turn & Burn Regatta is held each fall, usually the first or second Sunday in November on the Schuylkill River/Kelly Drive in Philadelphia, PA. Join us and help make sure every Philadelphia child has access to a computer. Organized by The Philadelphia Children’s Foundation, the Turn & Burn Regatta is comprised of a “Turn” (a 1,500 meter stake boat turning race), and immediately after… a “Burn (a 500 meter sprint), featuring masters, college, and high school/junior events. PCF Founder [...]

August 17th, 2014|Categories: PCF News|

PCF Partner Spotlight: Health Partners Plans

Health Partners Plans is a long-standing, not-for-profit health insurance organization serving more than 180,000 area members through its Medicaid and Medicare coverage and also many children through its KidzPartners/CHIP program. In fact, about half of their members are children. HPP CIO Hal Augustine configures software for newly rehabbed computers on their way to Philadelphia children. The Plan is owned by major Philadelphia area hospitals including Aria, Einstein, Hahnemann, Temple and St. Christopher's Hospital [...]

July 25th, 2014|Categories: PCF News, Sponsors|

Meet the 2014 PCF Intern Team

PCF's six awesome interns help build a better future for Philadelphia's children. Aliya and Denise prepare computer equipment for 2nd grade students at Hartranft Elementary School. This summer, the Philadelphia Children's Foundation has a team of seven brilliant interns who are working hard to fulfill the mission of PCF: to help children of all ages find their passion, develop needed skills, and make positive career and life decisions to achieve a successful future. [...]

July 2nd, 2014|Categories: PCF News|

PCF Board Member Michael O’Bryan Awarded Prestigious Grant For Community Initiative

PCF's own Michael O'Bryan was named a 2014 BMe Leader for his work with Built4Us, a youth-based media non-profit publishing company that views creativity and interactive media as vital tools for psychological well-being. Michael is a passionate scholar who combines music, science, and psychology into programs aimed at helping youths process community trauma. As part of the award, Michael will receive a $10,000 grant to be used to jumpstart his unique program in Philadelphia.  Michael has [...]

June 25th, 2014|Categories: PCF News|