[BlindTlk] Volunteering

[Jude DaShiell]

I did volunteer work  for SMARTCO in Maryland disassembling computers.  It
needed sight to read certain instruments to be able to assemble computers
and the industry has never made any of those accessible and will never do
so either.  Disassembling involved using tools and recovering as many
parts from each machine as was possible.  Those parts if they were good
enough were passed to an assembly area where referbished computers were
built.  Those referbished computers went to many countries around the
world and 2/3 of all computers in St. Mary's County Maryland had a SMARTCO
label on them since that was the only way families could even afford a
computer.  People would usually put in 40 hours of work for SMARTCO and
then be elligible to get a basic referbished system.  Laptops cost 100
hours.  Charities usually put in bids for most of the equipment SMARTCO
provides which is how computers went abroad.  I remember India got 800 in
one order and Moldova and Honduras also got computers.



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