Know anyone with a large empty building, workshop or warehouse? Then be sure to tell them to listen up! Our good friends over at All Walks of Life (AWOL) have grown too big for their britches and need to find a new space to set up their new IT program.

Known as the Goon Squad, the program takes young people referred by the Chatham County Juvenile Court and teaches them how to clean and refurbish used computers, load them with a comprehensive package of practical open-source software, and then gives the computers away for free to local families and institutions in the community.

The program helps close the digital divide—increasing access to technology among low income families. Plus, over the next three years at the current level of donations, the program will divert over 300 tons of e-waste from landfills, provide thousands of free computers to needy families and most importantly, help re-tool Savannah kids with valuable computer training skills. How cool is that? A win-win-win for the kids, the environment and our community.

AWOL’s current 1600 square foot digs are getting cramped with the influx of machines (from an unnamed donor) – 100 computers per week for several years. Not to mention that their current home base also houses all of their educational programs, including sound design, photography, spoken word and IT.

With a larger space, AWOL would not only have room to move and do it’s amazing, altruistic, creative thang, they’d also be well-positioned to vastly expand Goon Squad’s capabilities should they receive a portion of the 7.2 billion dollars available through the Obama Administration Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), which was part of the federal stimulus package passed earlier this year. They’re in the process of applying – good luck guys!

So, if you or someone you know has (a lot) more square footage than they know what to do with, tell them to contact Tony Jordan.

Email: tjordan@awolinc.org

Phone: 912-303-4987

About Goon Squad: The goal of AWOL’s Information Technology Training Class is to enable youth to enter the world of Information Technology and enhance their abilities, employability and ultimately, self-sufficiency. The primary objective of this program is to provide computer training, skills and knowledge to youth living in the Savannah community with a focus on Juvenile Offenders. In concert with the IT training will be Project Mean Green, which will recycle computer technology and provide low and no-cost computing to individuals and not-for-profit organizations in the community. Any computer equipment, working or not, can be donated to Goon Squad. Our youth IT workers, alongside a team of Savannah’s most savvy IT professionals, will repair and reuse what computers we can. Reuse gives low income families a chance to have a good computer in the home so that school age children can access the internet or so that adults living in the home can find a new job, or take online courses at a local college. The Goon Squad, AWOL’s IT program was founded in the fall of 2008. In December 2008, the Goon Squad held its first annual Big Give, handing out computers to 25 families, along with free wireless modems and 6 months of free Cricket Wireless broadband service. Since then, they have repaired and refurbished over 100 machines that are waiting to go out to applicants, and have helped set up a community computer lab at Tremont Temple Church on Martin Luther King Blvd.

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