ComputerCorps wins regional EPA award

A Carson City nonprofit organization earned a regional award from the Environmental Protection Agency for providing needy families with computers.

Every Home A Classroom, a program operated by ComputerCorps, applied creativity, teamwork and leadership in addressing an environmental challenge in the West, said Wayne Nastri, EPA regional administrator.

"The winners set an example for all of us to follow," Nastri said in a press release.

Ron Norton, president of ComputerCorps, has traveled around North America promoting this program as a way to help families and eliminate electronic waste from landfills.

"The program is unique in that it takes computers and electronic equipment which would normally be tossed in landfills and puts it back into the homes of under-served families that wouldn't normally have a computer."

Next month, Norton will be in New Orleans at a national conference on electronic waste pollution prevention.

ComputerCorps has kept more than 1.6 million computer items out of landfills by refurbishing, reusing or recycling.

This represents more then 4 million pounds of electronic waste not put into the landfills.

More than 8,000 people have been provided with equipment and/or training, along with 400 organizations and schools that have benefited by receiving recycled computers from the 40,000-square-foot warehouse.

To donate a computer

Call ComputerCorps at 883-2323.

Businesses can have electronics picked up. The nonprofit organization accepts tax-deductible donations of computers, fax machines, copiers, cell phones, stereos and speakers.

ComputerCorps works through school administrations and counselors to identify needy families. These families receive the computers at no cost through the Every Home A Classroom program.