Level Up Reigate & Banstead is a project that provides laptops for children and young people who need them for home study.
A group of amazing volunteers collects and refurbishes laptops from the local community and businesses. They distribute to young people via local schools and charities. At Citizens Advice, we’ve donated to the Warwick School, Redhill.
Level Up R&B is a partnership. Raven Housing Trust is leading the work with help from VARB and Level Up Horley. Fidelity UK, Pfizer and Reigate and Banstead Borough Council are providing financial and other essential support. Their funding helps with the cost of new hard drives and other parts needed for refurbishment.
In the current lockdown many vulnerable families can’t give their children much help to learn at home due to lack of digital devices. The project has a Phase 1 target of providing 600 laptops to schools by Easter.
So far (w/c 8 Feb) we have allocated 175 laptops to schools. The tech volunteers are working incredibly hard to get the next batch ready. Generous local people and businesses have donated 330 items since the start of the year. But we still need more with the right specification.
Due to the requirements of home schooling we can only take laptops running Windows 7, 8 or 10 and have at least one USB port. We can’t accept laptops running Windows XP or Vista. Equally, the project can’t make use of old tablets, phones or printers. You can usually find details of the operating system of your laptop on the bottom of the machine.
We arrange to securely wipe hard discs or remove and destroy. We can then refurbish and distribute. All project volunteers are DBS (disclosure and barring service) checked.
Level Up R&B has a donation box at Raven House, 29 Linkfield Lane, Redhill RH11SS (large brown shed to the left of the front door) open Monday to Friday 9-5pm. We can also collect donation from homes – to arrange collection, complete the form on the VARB website
If you have any queries, please email levelup@ravenht.org.uk