The gap isn’t hardware.
There is plenty of hardware.

El Paso is full of computers nobody is using. They are in closets, in garages, in the back of offices that upgraded three years ago, in the room of a kid who left for college. Most of them work. Most of the ones that don’t are one part away from working.

At the same time there are people here doing everything on a phone — job applications, homework, benefits paperwork, telehealth appointments. Not because a computer would not help, but because a computer costs money they have already allocated to something that cannot wait.

Computers for Compassion moves the first pile toward the second.

We take whatever is offered. That is a deliberate policy, not an oversight. The moment a charity publishes a restrictions list — no CRTs, nothing older than seven years, must power on — people start pre-judging their own donations and throwing away things we could have used. So we removed the list. Any brand, any operating system, any age, working or not.

What can be restored gets restored: cleaned, parts swapped, memory and storage upgraded where we have the spares, a current operating system installed, and tested properly before it goes anywhere. What cannot be restored gets parted out for the machines that can, and whatever is left is recycled responsibly rather than landfilled.

Recipients are nominated — by a teacher, a neighbor, a relative, a case worker, or by themselves. We ask what the machine is for and what is going on, because that is how we decide what to build. We do not ask for proof of income, we do not charge an application fee, and nothing has to be paid back.