Winlock School District Superintendent Garry Cameron, left holds one of the donated laptops before loading the laptops into his car with GSA Northwest/Arctic Region Regional Administrator Roy Atwood.
Garry Cameron, Winlock School District superintendent, right, and Roy Atwood, GSA Northwest/Arctic Region Regional Administrator, load the donated laptops into Cameron’s car.
The Winlock School District received $112,500 worth of computer equipment — 75 laptops — donated by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) on Wednesday.
The refurbished computers were donated through GSA’s Computers for Learning program which “enables schools and educational nonprofit organizations to obtain excess computer equipment from federal agencies.”
Superintendent of Winlock School District Garry Cameron said that donation of computers came at a good time because of the school closures and students and staff having to continue school work from home. Laptops are also much easier for teachers to take home to use for remote learning as opposed to their school desktop computers.
“We’re excited to get these laptops for our students and teachers,” Cameron said. “This will really help us as we try and educate in this new environment of learning and teaching from home.”
Cameron mentioned that within the Winlock School District many students come from low-income families and access to computers to continue learning from home during the school closure can be difficult.
“GSA is very happy to be able to pass along this equipment to school districts in this time of need,” said Roy Atwood, Regional Administrator for the Northwest/Arctic Region. “These computers will help students advance their educational opportunities and that is so important right now.”
GSA said in a press release that the laptops were cleaned and refurbished by the organization’s information technology team located in Auburn. The laptops became available as regional government agencies upgraded their equipment. Atwood met up with Cameron to deliver the laptops on Wednesday.
“With the Covid-19 crisis, the district is in need of all the support we can find,” Cameron said. “We were excited GSA was there to help.”
