Don’t ditch your desktops; donate them!

Unity Insurance Services has donated several disused computers to a local primary school, much to the delight of teachers and pupils alike.

The post-pandemic shift in working patterns has transformed businesses across Britain. With more people now working from home, many companies have either closed their offices entirely or downsized and introduced hot-desking for staff just coming in once or twice a week. Sound familiar? Indeed, by the time the lockdowns were over, Unity employees had all adopted the new hybrid approach. 

To enable everyone to work both at home and in the office, we swapped our traditional desktop computers for laptops. This left us with a large number of perfectly good PCs, which we were reluctant to simply dispose of. Fortunately, a solution soon presented itself when we heard that a local primary school was looking to re-equip the room where teachers prepare lessons. It was the perfect opportunity to reuse and recycle some otherwise redundant equipment.

This summer term, we donated seven Dell PCs to Queen’s Park Primary School in Brighton, where teachers had been struggling for screentime in their Preparation, Planning and Assessment (PPA) room.

Before sending the computers off, our IT team prepared them for use in schools. “First and foremost, donated equipment must be made safe and secure with all personal information removed according to data protection rules,” says Denis Jenkins, Systems Manager at Unity. “We ensured each computer was wiped clean to EU standards, and double checked them before delivering,” he adds.

The teachers and children at Queen’s Park have already expressed their thanks for the new additions. “They have completely changed the PPA room!” says Ms Kirsty Murray, Acting Headmistress at the school. “Eight teachers can now easily plan at the same time. It has doubled our capacity for this invaluable space.” One possible drawback is that Ms Murray may need to keep an eye on teachers’ screentime!

For companies around the UK looking for ways to reuse or recycle their unwanted office equipment, donating computers to local schools, youth groups, or charities could help organisations with limited funds to stay connected in this fast-paced world.