July 18, 2006

Rotary Club Donates Laptop to S.A.R.A. Program

John Koeper, New Bremen resident and S.A.R.A. (Sharing America's Resources Abroad) representative, accepted a donation of the club's old laptop computer from club president Bill Wente during the weekly meeting.  S.A.R.A. is a ministry of the United Church of Christ.

John gave a brief overview of the S.A.R.A. program for refurbishing computer equipment for distribution to both domestic and international recipients.  Both he and another volunteer from the Kalamazoo Michigan area take donated computer equipment such as the club's laptop for cleaning, repair, cleaning of the hard drive and reloading of operating system software.  Most often desktop systems are what are donated and he was very appreciative of the laptop as they are in high demand. 

Various sources donate to the program including a major Dayton area hospital that upgrades their equipment on a three year cycle, a local building supply distributor, a local manufacturer and private individuals.  So far, in his 2 years of involvement in the program, John has personally processed about 400 of the roughly 600 units that have come through the program.

Overseas, the program reaches out to organizations in Kenya, Ukraine and El Salvador and domestically, the majority of the recipients are small churches who need computers for word processing.  Other recipients include retirement homes, schools and an Indian reservation in the Dakotas.