Boys and Girls Club Awards TechEase Community Partner of the Year

By Evan Asher February 2nd in Community, News

The Westside Boys and Girls Club honored TechEase as Community Partner of the Year for its pro bono work in 2008.  Over the course of the year, TechEase donated over $8,000.00 in services and hardware to the club. The award ceremony was well-attended, and took place at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum.

“There are so many community partners to thank, but one stands out as going head and shoulders above the rest,” said Lindsey Leonard,Director of the Westside Boys and Girls Club.  “When we started, we didn’t even have computers for all of our staff.  Now we each have our own computer and are sharing documents on a server!”

Through donations and salvaging of old equipment, TechEase restored an ailing computer lab which had roughly 6 working computers to a thriving and functional computer lab with over 14 computer stations.

“We’re very honored to have received this award, and to know what we’ve done has made a difference to the club,” said TechEase Co-owner Evan Asher.  “They’re doing great work there.  It’s really rewarding for us because we can see the impact the club has on the community every time we go out there.”

TechEase and the Westside Boys and Girls Club connected after aRotaract meeting at the Westside site.  “After such a compelling presentation from Lindsey about the club’s goals and challenges, it was clear we had to step up to help.  It wasn’t fair that these kids had to make do with a substandard computer lab.  If we expect them to learn to use technology, we need to provide them with appropriate tools,including safeguards against the type of content that would be inappropriate for the Club,” explained Asher.

With the current state of the economy, non-profits are some of the first to suffer from tightening budgets.  TechEase has pledged to continue the same level of service as it offered in 2008, with the goal of implementing a second stage of technology improvement now that all staff have computers.  Asher hopes “this will give the staff there one less impediment to fulfilling their mission.”