During the month of July, the DirectBuy corporate campus donated CPUs, monitors, keyboards, printers and funds to the Boys and Girls Club of Northwest Indiana.
The contributions will help facilitate a computer-refurbishing program that is tentatively set to launch during the upcoming school year, providing the receipt of additional funding from a pass through grant from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
Studies show that children with home access to computers are six to eight percent more likely to graduate from high school than those without. The digital divide continues to create a barrier for young adults entering the work force, said DirectBuys Network Administrator Ken Snedecor. Information technology is a new prerequisite for success in the labor market and children with little to no exposure will suffer the consequences.
The refurbishing program will educate children on the inner-workings of a computer. The program will also include instructional activities such as adding additional memory and loading new software programs.
The best part about the new program is that once the PCs are rebuilt, the children get to take them home for keeps, said Alison Martin, Vice President of Development and Marketing. We are thankful for DirectBuys continued support of the Boys & Girls Clubs and their willingness to give us such equipment that we can use if to launch the program once funding is received.
This type of generosity is fairly standard for the DirectBuy corporate office. Throughout the last two years, the corporate campus donated more than 100 CPUs and monitors to Net Literacy, a youth empowered nonprofit organization headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. The donation impacted thousands of individuals in and around the midwest.
DirectBuy also contributes funds to the Boys & Girls Club of Northwest Indiana through quarterly employee casual days, where employees make a minimum donation of $2 to support the charity and dress in jeans for one workday. So far this year, DirectBuy collected and donated more than $2,700 from just two casual days.
Employees like Field Sales Representative Tanja Zoellner look forward to each donation. Im really happy that we are given an outlet to donate each quarter, said Zoellner. Though individually we might not be able to make a huge difference, collectively we are very powerful. I look forward to donating again!
About Boys & Girls Club of Northwest Indiana
BGCNWI was founded in 1954 in Gary, Indiana. Currently BGCNWI operates six Club sites in six cities throughout Lake County Indiana. Serving more than 10,000 youth ages 6 to 18 years of age, BGCNWI provide Club programs and services that promote and enhance the positive development of boys and girls. The core belief of the organization, Board of Directors, staff, and donors is that all six Club sites provide youth with a safe place to learn and grow, teach youth to develop interpersonal relationships, provide youth with life-enhancing programs,character development experiences and last but not least to continue providing youth with hope and opportunity.
About DirectBuy
For more than 38 years, DirectBuy has been showing thousands of consumers unparalleled ways to save as they shop for virtually everything for in and around their homes from furniture, carpet and flooring, and custom window treatments, to kitchen and bath cabinets and fixtures, appliances and much, much more.
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