Stats and Testimonials

This page exists as a central point for gathering information that demonstrates how cool Free Geek is.

share these at will

• Please indicate the source and date of anything you add to this list.
• If you're unsure of anything, put it below the double line until it's ready.
• If you have a longer testimonial or item elsewhere in the wiki, please link to it here.

Statistics

Free Geek

• Free Geek has received 31,441 computers (systems), 33,169 monitors and 22,102 printers

taken by Oso from FGDB 11/2000 to 12/05/2005

• Free Geek has put more than 6,400 (6,412) computer systems

taken by Oso from FGDB 11/2000 to 12/05/2005

• Free Geek has recycled approximately 1,000 tons of e-scrap since its inception (current as of 12/2005).

• Last year (2005) Free Geek recovered 420 tons of e-scrap (compiled by Oso - life of program - 11/2000 to 12/05/2005).

• Roughly 20% of systems donated to Free Geek over the last 5 years, after reconfiguration, have gone back out as working systems.

rephrased from Oso's two stats above. --Pete 12:32, 4 Jan 2006 (PST)

• see 2005_Annual_Report

The World Outside

• Portland writer Elizabeth Grossman has a lot of numbers in her 2006 book: High Tech Trash [1] (WARNING: sweet link)--Revphil 15:45, 23 August 2007 (PDT)
  • The world generates twenty to fifty million metric tons of e-waste each year, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
  • Discarded electronics account for approximately 70 percent of heavy metals and 40 percent of the lead found in U.S. landfills according to a 2001 EPA report.
  • 250 million computers are expected to become obsolete between 2007 and 2008 and at least 200 million televisions will be discarded between 2003 and 2010.
  • Between 1992 and 2002, U.S. sales of consumer electronics, including PCs, quadrupled.
  • 95 percent of American consumers do not know the meaning of “e-waste” and 58 percent are not aware of an electronics recycling program in their community.
  • Between two and four million tons of e-waste from the United States wind up overseas each year for low-tech recycling.

• 1.5 billion pounds (750,000 tons) of electronic equipment dumped annually and processed into landfills (11/2006, International Association of Electronics Recyclers)
• In the next decade, about 3 billion units of consumer goods will become garbage (11/2006, International Association of Electronics Recyclers)

Needed

• # of boxes adopted/granted/sold last year
• Toxins in computers
• Functions of toxins in computers
• A few hardware grantee examples: what does the org. do? what did we give them? what did they use the hardware for? contact info at organization.

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Table below reflects number of monetary donations (including monitor fees, individuals, organizations) over $500, $400, etc. Note that several donations of $50 in one year would show up in the "under $100" column, instead of showing up in aggregate.

--Pete 12:14, 4 Jan 2006 (PST) (using data supplied by Richard. See talk page for SQL queries.)

Number of Donations by Dollar Amount

year	$500 & up	$400 -499	$300 -399	$200 -299	$100 -199	under $100	hardware only
2001	1	1	0	3	12	1131	729
2002	1	1	2	7	40	2100	979
2003	3	2	7	10	76	3329	1368
2004	19	5	9	30	130	5875	1530
2005	11	3	13	40	181	7496	1799

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Testimonials

If you'd like to interview someone to gather some testimonials check out the Testimonial Questions for some ideas of questions to ask.

• Press Release 10/07

"Affordable Community Environments (ACE)

Vancouver, Washington

NEWS RELEASE

September 24, 2007

For more information about ACE and its programs contact:

Pam Brokaw, ACE executive director, 360-597-0088.

Free Geek donates computers for local kids A group of local self-proclaimed computer geeks is making an after school computer program possible for low income kids and their families.

Free Geek of Portland has donated nine computers to Affordable Community Environments, ACE. The computers will be used in ACE’s after school and adult education programs at the not-for-profit’s properties in the Orchard’s area.

ACE Residential Services Coordinator, Shane McWhorter, said the program is just getting off the ground and the generous donation from Free Geek helped achieve lift off several months earlier than expected. McWhorter said he is setting up the lab that will be used as a homework center for kids and, eventually a place parents can do school work in addition to job search and resume development.

“This is a positive step in helping children and families succeed,” said ACE Executive Director Pam Brokaw. Brokaw noted that ACE not only builds affordable rental housing it also connects residents to community programs to move them out of poverty into home ownership, education and living wage jobs.

Brokaw said anyone interested in donating to ACE or volunteering in programs can contact either herself or McWhorter at 360-597-0088.

Brokaw said ACE is currently in development on two construction projects in Vancouver – Transitional Housing for veterans, their families and community members, as well as a Mixed-Use project in the Fruit Valley area linked to youth programming.

We believe in affordable communities for everyone."

• "Thank you so much for the grant of four computers, which are a major upgrade from those we have been using. A.P. is loading software and putting them onto our network as I write. I cannot think of a greater boost for our staff morale and cheer than to have good equipment to use! Sincerely,

Dorothy Jensen, Executive Director, Outreach in Burnside, 207 NW Third, Portland, 97209

--Shawn 15:05, 12 December 2006 (PST)

• "Free Geek has been greatly supportive of the youth and families that I work with. While developing important ties to the community, youth are able to develop important self esteem and job related skills. They are able to do this while earning a computer of their own which can follow them as a tool into their search for jobs in our community."

Scott Brown LCSW, Youth and Family Therapist, Counterpoint Outpatient, Morrison Child and Family Services

--Pete 18:12, 19 Dec 2005 (PST)

• "as asked i will give my information my name is forrest i work in various places in freegeek usualy work where they need me meening i move around alot my main reason for joining freegeek was for the store discount but when iheard it was 4 hours for 90 days of discount i decided to just keep comeing in i like working on computers from building them at home or fixing them for friends from time to time i also enjoy learniung new things and since i started at freegeek have learned more then i expected in a 1 month time"

Forrest Gray, Dec '05.

Posted to core, approved for public use via another email to core. Thanks Forrest!

--Pete 18:51, 8 Dec 2005 (PST)

• "At Free Geek, I have been able to both further my knowledge of computer hardware and software, and help train those less knowledgeable than myself. And when I or my clients have old computer systems to get rid of, we know they will be put to the best possible use."

-Pete Forsyth, small business owner, Puddletown Tech

--Pete 15:44, 3 Dec 2005 (PST)

• • Free Geek is a great place to learn how to troubleshoot computers. I have learned more in two weeks of working at Free Geek than I have in two years of College work experience. College has given me the basic skills on computer but Free Geek has taught me the brass roots of troubleshooting. Also the people at Free Geek have always been there to help me when I need it. Thank you to everyone. I look forward to keep helping Free Geek to be a success in their effects to recycle, reduce and reuse.

--Jgram 11:17, 13 May 2006 (PDT)

• "Sponsoring Free Geek's 'Geek Prom' event was great fun for all of us at New Deal Distillery. The volunteers were fun and easy to work with & the exposure New Deal received was excellent. We'd happily work with Free Geek to support their events again!"

Jana Hughes, marketing director, New Deal Vodka

--Pete 21:06, 20 Dec 2005 (PST)

• Dottye Flowers, Free Geek volunteer since 4/2005, 61 years old. Quotes dated 11/05.
  • "[Free Geek] is a very good training place. And to me it has been like my extended family."
  • "The folks that volunteer [at Free Geek] are fun to work with and all the instructores are very patient and couteous to me and so appreciative of everyone's efforts. I get smiles when I arrive and I am sad to go when I have run out of time."
  • "When building my 5th computer, I had picked out one from the warehouse that most of the frequent or regular builders and the instructors thought it might be too hard for me to build. I asked if it could be done and they said yes. Then when I asked if I would have help to build it they all quickly said, "Yes, we will help you." So we all built it and it was a fine system when it was completed. It was a really good looking computer system and I felt so good about the accomplishment. But the thanks really goes to all of the folks around me that helped me build it. My thanks to all who helped me."

--Shawn 17:19, 29 Dec 2005 (PST)

• An important turning point for me in my Free Geek experience was the day that I noticed, and stopped to consider, a sign in the front entryway that states discrimination based on sexism, and racism will not be tolerated. Someone had modified this notice with the hand written inclusion of able-ism as an additional unacceptable point of view.

The more I thought about this concept of accepting the contributions of others independent of their respective skills, the more I realized this sort of patience and tolerance is at the core of volunteering at Free Geek. In essence, that having a person’s heart be in the right place, and be willing to contribute at all, transcends the individual results of their abilities.

Further examination of this credo allowed me to apply it to other aspects of my world; whether volunteering at my daughter’s school, at work, or even my role as a bicycle commuter. Awareness of able-ism as a discriminatory force has broadened my perspective on cooperation, and humanity.

Dirk Morgan, volunteer

--Pete 19:03, 4 Jan 2006 (PST)

• I had heard about it years ago through a friend and they said “you have to see this place”. At the time I wasn’t interested; a bunch of geeks recycling computers? That didn’t sound like my idea of fun.

...

About a year ago I had a meeting scheduled for me at Free Geek so I was finally going to get a chance to see the facility. Again, I was a little skeptical (for whatever reason I don’t know). I showed up about 10 minutes before Free Geek opened and I was amazed … what were all of these people doing out in front of the store front? Oh, they must want in on some cheap equipment. That makes sense.

At 11am the doors opened and I was surprised to see that nobody went into the thrift shop; they were all there to volunteer.

Scott Kveton, formerly Associate Director, Oregon State University Open Source Lab and current CEO of JanRain.

full blog on web

--Pete 19:03, 4 Jan 2006 (PST)

• I started at Freegeek about two years ago because another computer recycling group had stopped after its leader Marshall Pryon died and a friend there suggested Freegeek as a good place to help others. Now my wife says I just feed my addictions to computers at Freegeek, so whichever it might truly be is not important. I work mostly in advanced laptop build and diagnosis why the laptop hardware is not responding, so we can get them out to non-profits, so they intern can use more of thief resources to reach the needy. I love it at Freegeek, I have learned important things from so many people there, almost everyone there has something to share. Freegeek is a eclectic mix of the best of our society, it is truely a example of people helping each other, there is allot of sweat and tears behind the scenes that is full of love.

John Warzynski, Build volunteer

--Pete 19:03, 4 Jan 2006 (PST)

• "I went to visit a mining company called Boliden, which is up on the northern end of the Baltic about two hours from the Finnish border, and another hour and a half drive from the Artic circle, so you're way up north. Boliden is a huge mining company. They have copper mines, zinc mines, silver, they actually do lead, as well. And the reason that I went to see them is not just because they do this mining but because they have discovered, like other mining companies, that old circuit boards are an incredibly concentrated and valuable source of copper and precious metals and other metals, as well. Actually the USGS has crunched some numbers and realized that a pile of circuit boards contains a far higher concentration of ore than the same quantity of raw ore would, and it's obviously a lot less costly from every possible perspective to mine a bunch of old circuit boards than it is to dig it up out of the ground to begin with.

But what Boliden is doing and part of the reason why it was so interesting to go visit them, is that there's a Finnish company there that collects the used electronics and actually oversees the dismantling of the electronics. These are things that are collected all over northern Scandinavia and then transported to this plant which I visited. One interesting thing in Europe is that used electronics aren't just computers and cell phones and televisions -- things with display screens -- its anything with a plug. So when you go to visit this place there are these huge bins with used appliances of every possible kind - everything from hair dryers to blenders, old stereo equipment and lamps, as well as computer equipment.

They dismantle this stuff and segregate the different materials, and then the metal-bearing circuit boards end up getting chopped up and shredded into little bits, and then they sit out in these open yards and then get shoveled into conveyers and funnel into this enormous smelter along with raw ore. So there is this enormous cauldron, and from one side comes chopped up electronics, and the other side comes raw ore, and then it gets melted down and it looks like every film you've ever seen of boiling metal -- it gets poured into these ingots and processed so that the copper and the other metals are separated out. It's one of the only places where it's being done like that. And Scandinavia is one of the first regions that is actually collecting the electronics, so they're a lot further along in the collection schemes."

Elizabeth Grossman "High Tech Trash" more quotes in this interview [2]

--Revphil 17:02, 23 August 2007 (PDT)

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 Eric Hanchrow wrote to Info@ with this:
I was in on Wednesday with my Dad, and he bought a machine with Ubuntu pre-loaded ... we took it home and hooked it up ... it worked fine ... in not too long, I'd restored all the data from his older machine ... he's back in business now. I'm not used to things working so smoothly, particularly things involving Linux. Thanks; you did a great job at a great price. --Revphil 10:32, 9 January 2008 (PST)

Awards

See Awards.

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in-progress stuff

When an item has been completed and verified, please move it above the double line AND put your name by it, in case of questions.

Quantifying our accomplishments:

Oso- curious about the estimate. Are there any materials, or time periods we CAN get hard numbers for, or is that just something that isn't tracked? Also, do I understand right, this is what we've sent out and literally "recycled", not including the stuff we've reused? --Pete 21:00, 7 Dec 2005 (PST)

possible interviewees

folks reporters might want to interview for more detail on certain topics:

• Consensus process: Richard (?)
• Education/workforce training: Laurel, Michael, Liane
• Free Geek as a good playground for making Free Software: Vagrant
• Free Geek as Portland citizen: Oso, Marie, RevPhil
• Fundraising: Oso
• Kids at FG: Forrest, Michael McC.
• LPI tests: Reid Leake, passed 101 and 102 in '05; Keith Lofstrom, prefers email over phone
• Recycling: Christen/Oso
• Linux-related aspects of Free Geek: Dave or Martin
• Volunteer programs: Shawn
• Volunteering: Bob G., Dirk M, Pete, Wren, Dottye, RevPhil
• Worker's Collective: Shawn (?)

other relevant wiki pages

good sources for stats

• Successful Grants
• FGdb
• Tour Spiels

places to use info contained here

• Tour Howto
• Press Kit
• Grant applications
• web site