CSC News
NC State Sponsored Geek-A-Thon® a Huge Success
Over 160 volunteers came together at Centennial Campus Middle School over the weekend of October 5-7th to take part in NC State’s first sponsored Geek-A-Thon®. The group refurbished 207 computers over the weekend, 68 of which were distributed to less-advantaged middle school children and their families on Saturday and Sunday during simultaneous Give-A-thons.
Elwood Peters, the outreach coordinator at Centennial Campus Middle School, said “43 of the PCS went to students and families from Centennial Middle School! There are a lot of students walking around school today with big smiles on their faces.”
The Geek-A-Thon® was planned this year as part of the NC State Department of Computer Science’s 40th Year Celebration. It was coordinated by student organizations – the Association for Computing Machinery/Association for Information Technology Professionals (ACM/AITP) and the Women in Computer Science (WiCS), in partnership with event founder, the Kramden Institute, Inc. and Centennial Campus Middle School.
The department wishes to thank the sponsors of the event; the NC chapter of the Society for Information Management (NC-SIM), which provided substantial financial support and the majority of the PCs to be refurbished, as well The Pantry / Kangaroo Express, Cisco Systems, and the Raleigh Chapter of Information Systems Security Association (ISSA). Ken Tate, director of development & external relations for the department, says the goal of the event is to have both an immediate and long-range impact on addressing the great digital divide in our extended community. Tate adds, “10 years from now, we’d love to have a graduating computer science student be able to say it all started with a PC they received during this Geek-A-thon.”
For more information on donating used computers or volunteering for future Geek-A-Thons, go to www.kramden.org.
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