Countywide : Foundation Gives Computers to Schools

The challenge was this: For every used computer the community donated to a school, the Detwiler Foundation in San Diego would donate a new one.

On Wednesday, the foundation made good, handing out 211 computers to 36 schools in Orange County, culminating a yearlong drive.

The foundation, a nonprofit group committed to boost computer literacy in the state, issued the challenge early last year, for computers from a local business or other donor.

The Detwiler Foundation donated 6,000 computers to schools throughout California. “We had teachers and parents interested in bringing technology to the school, said Ed Kissee, principal of Westminster’s Eastwood Elementary, which received 13 computers. “When the foundation came out with the challenge, it was just natural to get them.”

California ranks 45th in the nation in the ratio of computers to students, according to a 1995 study from Denver-based Quality Education Data.

“Our mission is to improve the conditions of technology in our schools and to make California a leader,” said foundation program director Deborah Brenner. “This way our schools can have current technology and be just one generation behind businesses.”

The used, donated computers are taken to students who are learning computer repair at high schools and colleges and to inmates at the California Department of Corrections Facilities, she said.

The foundation will begin another computer donation drive within the next month, Brenner said.