Computers of Compassion · El Paso, Texas

“If you have two shirts,
give one to the one who has none.”

Luke 3:11

Most of us already own the second shirt. Sometimes it’s a laptop in the closet that nobody has opened in three years. We refurbish donated computers and give them away free to folks here in El Paso who need one — students and seniors first.

Every machine that leaves this bench is somebody’s answered prayer, and every one of them started as something a neighbor decided not to throw away. Glory to God for all of it.

Schedule a pickup Nominate someone

We have never turned a donation down. Any brand, any operating system, any age, working or not — if it plugs in, has a screen, or came in the box with something that did, we want it.

1
Blessing given: 0
Ready to bless: 4
On the bench: 1
Recycled, not binned

That is every device anyone has handed us — 6 in total. Nothing sits forgotten in a cupboard, and nothing goes to landfill: what we can’t restore is stripped for the parts that fix the next one.

Standing in the way

4 machines are finished and waiting on parts.

2monitors
1keyboard
1mouse
2USB-C chargers

1×tablet — restored and tested, waiting on a USB-C charger.
1×desktop — restored and tested, waiting on a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse.
1×desktop — restored and tested, waiting on a monitor.
1×laptop — restored and tested, waiting on a USB-C charger.

None of this is exotic. It is the stuff most people already have in a drawer, and every item on that list puts a working computer in somebody’s home. We’ll come and get it.

Thank you

These folks made the difference.

5 gifts received

Anonymous · 1 laptopAnonymous · 1 desktopAnonymous · 1 desktopAnonymous · 1 tabletAmanda Luevano · 1 laptop and 1 tabletAnonymous · 1 laptopAnonymous · 1 desktopAnonymous · 1 desktopAnonymous · 1 tabletAmanda Luevano · 1 laptop and 1 tablet

Every name here is somebody who cleared out a closet and thought of a neighbor. The anonymous ones gave exactly the same thing — they just didn’t want the credit. Glory to God for all of them.

The honest rhythm of it

Some weeks we bless several families. Some weeks we bless none.

There is almost always a list of folks waiting. Machines go out as they come off the bench, so a week where somebody clears out an office moves several families at once, and a quiet week moves nobody. We don’t pretend otherwise, and we don’t leave anyone guessing — if it’s going to be a while, we say so.

We can’t make the donations appear. That part has never been up to us, and every single week it has been provided for anyway.

“If you help the one who has none, you are lending to the LORD — and he will repay you!”

Proverbs 19:17

From your closet to their desk

Three steps, and only one of them is yours.

Donated
You hand it over
Book a pickup and we come to you anywhere in El Paso, or drop it off if that is easier. One laptop or a storage room full. No sorting, no cleaning it up first — that is our job, not yours.
Refurbished
We wipe it, then fix it
Every drive is dealt with before anything else happens, and you can ask for that in writing. Then it goes on the bench: parts, memory, a battery, a fresh operating system, and a proper test before it goes anywhere.
Given away
Someone gets it
It goes to a family here in El Paso, nominated by somebody who noticed them. Free. No repayment, no strings, no application fee. Just a blessing passed along.

Form A · Donor

You have hardware sitting idle.

Tell us roughly what you’ve got and when you’re around. We’ll confirm a window and come get it. You do not need to know whether it works, what is in it, or what it’s worth. God can use a machine you had written off.

Schedule a pickup

Form B · Nomination

You know someone who needs one.

A student without a laptop. A neighbor filling out job applications on a phone. A grandparent who wants to see the grandkids’ faces. Somebody has to notice them first — tell us about them, or about yourself, which counts just the same.

Nominate someone

Before anything else

Your files never make it to the bench.

Generosity shouldn’t cost you a night’s sleep. So we take this part off your hands completely.

The first thing that happens to a donated machine is that its drive gets erased. Not “files deleted” — overwritten, so nothing is recoverable. Ask when you book and we’ll send you written confirmation once it’s done, with the machine’s reference number on it.

And if erasing isn’t enough for your peace of mind, say so and we will fit the machine with a different drive and physically destroy the one your data was on. We cover the replacement. It costs you nothing, and it is a normal thing to ask for — you would not be the first.

Drives that fail to wipe are destroyed, never resold.

Who makes this possible

Blessings come easier when we have great business sponsors.

Neither of these is a cheque. They are the things a small charity has to have before it can help anybody — and we don’t pay for either of them.

What they do
An HRIS and benefits-administration platform built benefits-first — the paperwork of employing people, handled for brokers and the businesses they look after.
What they give us
Camber provides the hardware this charity runs on: the server behind this website, and the system we keep track of every donation and nomination with.
camberbenefits.com
What they do
Cloud accounting and bookkeeping for businesses, nonprofits and school districts, including K-12 fund accounting built to each state’s chart of accounts.
What they give us
Spire Ledgers lets us use their bookkeeping software at no charge, so our books are kept properly from the first day rather than whenever we could afford it.
spireledgers.com

If your business would like to cover a monitor, a keyboard or a hard drive, we would be glad to say thank you here too — info@c4cep.com.

“If you have two shirts,give one to the one who has none.”