THREE friends have decided to volunteer their time to make sure school children in Somerset have the resources they need.
After Dan Taylor, from Bridgwater, posted on Facebook on January 6 asking for old laptops to refurbish and give to school children, his friends Simon Sparkes, from Wellington, and Tim Finch, from Taunton, decided to help.
And now they have been volunteering for nearly a month and have collected, or are waiting to collect, more than 160 laptops.
"Dan’s family household is the busiest," said Mr Finch.
"I was astounded he had found the time to do this and I thought if Dan can find the time then Simon and I can.
"We need a website, a name, so we can point people somewhere. So I went on a hunt for a name and I was trying different types of endings (instead of .org or .co.uk) and I wanted something .tech. So I decided on school.tech - and although the domain name was available, it was £12,000. So I took out one of the letter o’s, and so the domain name was then just £5.
"So the website stands for Somerset Computers for Home Online Learning.
"That same weekend, I asked my 11-year-old daughter Sophie for a logo of a school child looking at a laptop. And she drew it on the Ipad in ten minutes.
"So, the website and logo were all done in the space of an hour."
On the website, people are able to fill in a form to offer a laptop to donate, and will also be able to request one if needed.
So far, the team - along with 20 volunteers - have managed to to collect, or are waiting to collect, 165 laptops in total across Wellington, Taunton and Bridgwater.
They now have an office - called 'the triage' where they store the laptops - and have recently welcomed a team of volunteers who will call schools and ask how Schol Tech can help, and contact businesses to find out if they have spare laptops to donate.
The hard drives are removed once the laptops arrive and the are replaced with SSDs instead - so no data from the previous owner will be on the laptop. Schol Tech will then install either Windows 10 or Ubuntu Linux for older laptops. School children will then be able to access a webcam/word documents and so on to be able to complete their online lessons.
"I just love the idea that people have got kit sitting in their house gather dust, and then six days later, it could be in someone's else house, actually being used," added Mr Finch.
"The community response has been incredible - there is nothing like a national pandemic for you to see the best side of people.
"We have had the most incredible responses, donations and there is such warmth from the community. It is genuinely encouraging.
"An incredible community spirit emerges, when frankly pre-pandemic, we have all been guilty of a selfish lifestyle.
"This is bringing out the best in people.
"I’d like to just say thank you. It has just been a joy, and I just want to say thanks to everyone for what they are doing."
Luis Martelo, a professional trumpeter from Taunton, has four children and has been adversely affected by the pandemic.
He used the Schol Tech service to make sure both his school-aged children could do their school work at the same time.
"I just contacted Tim and picked up a laptop," he said.
"I have four kids and two are working at the same time and it was impossible.
"Now they can do schooling together. It has been very helpful, it is the only way they could do the schoolwork at the same time."
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