hi everyone -
typing is an essential life skill these days and i'm a big fan of
quality typing software. check out this vendor selling mavis beacon
15 for $1.20.
http://store.yahoo.com/software-blowouts/mavbeacteact4.html
ground shipping on this is $6, so the total is about $7.15.
since you can only buy one copy of this program at a time, this is a
good time to start organizing "purchasing volunteers" in your
community. what's a purchasing volunteer? it's someone who uses
their credit to help get such useful items into the hands of someone
who would find it difficult to make such a purchase.
a few years ago i placed a free notice in the weekly "volunteers"
column of the washington post newspaper asking for "purchasing
volunteers." the newspaper contacted me for clarification, since
they had never of this concept before. i explained the concept to
them and they gladly ran my free notice.
i heard from two very lovely people who bought a bunch of
educational software that i delivered with donated computers to
kids' homes. these volunteers submitted rebates and retrieved
most of their purchase money. when i offered to cover their
shipping costs, they very generously told me they wanted to pay
for that, too.
note that the above mavis beacon software is being sold without
rebates.
there are thousands of kind-spirited persons out there wanting
to do there own small part to support initiatives to bridge the
divide. explain to them how they can play a small role, tell
them about the work you're currently doing, and you will find
the right people.
success begets success. if you find the totally right person,
he or she will bring 10 to 20 of their social contacts on
board.
scan your local newspaper to find the column where volunteers
can be requested. if it's not so clearly findable, call the
newspaper to find out if and when such a feature of the
newspaper runs. it may well be worth placing a well-worded
paid classified, too.
- phil
btw, an analogous role to a purchasing volunteer is a transporting
volunteer. these are folks who offer some of their time to cart computers
(or other technology), software and other useful items across town. i've
been lucky to run into a couple transporting volunteers in projects i've
worked on. i didn't even go looking for them. they found me. they saved
me a lot of wear and tear on my car and gave me back some free time.
--
Phil Shapiro [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.his.com/pshapiro/ (personal)
http://teachme.blogspot.com (weblog)
http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/pshapiro (technology access work)
http://mytvstation.blogspot.com/ (video and rich media)
"We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon."
-- Dr. Konrad Adenauer
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