The Catherine McAuley Center in Scranton wasn’t necessarily looking for computers.
Then a group of Abington Heights High School students reached out. Now the nonprofit has updated technology to better serve people in need.
"It really is a great donation, and it'll really be utilized. Big time," said Michelle Bolus, the center's caseworker.
The high school's Computer Club donated refurbished tablets, PCs, keyboards, monitors, track pads, mice, Chromebooks and laptops.
“Even if it's just enough for basic computing, internet browsing, it can help someone," said Ethan Flynn, outgoing club president. He just graduated.
The Catherine McAuley Center provides housing programs and emergency shelters, transitional housing and family support programs in both Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.
"My plan for the computers is to set up a little resource area, and be able to let the families do their job searches, update their benefits information, so they could get their socials and get food stamps and medical assistance," said Bolus.
She said families can also make telehealth appointments and look for apartments for their next step with the donated technology.
McAuley’s centers have Wi-Fi but it’s often not easy to fill out forms on a small cell phone screen.
"We could sit down together and make sure that ... they're doing everything that they need to do to keep moving," said Bolus. “It just really helps to pull everything together.”
Caitlyn McDonnell is the incoming co-president of the student-led Computer Club.
“I really like having the ability to give technology to people who need it," she said.
The members are from all different backgrounds and interests and are mostly self-taught on how to fix the technology.
"You would never think that in a million years that all of the types of people that are in it would be together and be friends," said Caitlyn.
The club has donated refurbished technology as far as Kenya.
"We take them apart, we take out a storage drive and we reset it make sure there's absolutely zero personal information left and install a new piece of software on there to be used," said Flynn. "It really depends on each case. Some of them are easy. Some of them take some time to figure out what's going on."
They rely mostly on community donations. When Penn Foster shut down its Scranton offices early this year, a liquidation service offered the club whatever they needed.
"That was hundreds of computer monitors, a few PC towers, keyboards, mice, enough to sustain the club for years to come," said Flynn.
Krista Murray is executive director of the Catherine McAuley center. She said the computer donation will be so impactful for the families the center serves.
"We're always open if somebody has really a skill set that they can they can give or something that they have that they think might be helpful to just give us a call and reach out," she said.
