Renewed Computers, Renewed Hope
We know Revive IT (and its sister company ER2) is not the only company that sells refurbished computers. However, we also know that isn’t why we exist. In a recent update to our website, the change is certainly visual, but it’s also reflective of a renewed commitment to understand our WHY. It’s what makes us unique, and what empowers us all.
For our partners, they say they feel the difference in working alongside a company who lives out a vision that understands how our unique talents and gifts make us so much better when we work together, and for a common goal. Associations we’ve developed as Revive IT have frequently led to other opportunities with ER2. For example we’ve given our partners the opportunity to take an earned “bank” of dollars obtained from the IT assets we’ve received from them, and donate to nonprofit organizations refurbished computers and other devices.
Our team members likewise have been given the opportunity this year to live out our why in providing impact hours outside of work to help others. Our goal for 2021 is 1,000 hours of service to organizations, communities, and even family members and neighbors in need.
This is a season to be grateful and to be generous in all that we’ve been blessed to receive. Here are just a few stories of this amazing journey this year, many of which began with the impact hours program, a refurbished computer or an aging IT asset being collected from a partner.
This amazing nonprofit refurbishes lives, just as we refurbish computers. Our tech combined with a donation of laptops on behalf of a partner in our donations program, made magic happen. We were humbled to hear the stories from the formerly incarcerated women they lift out of a potentially hopeless situation, and grant them a life full of potential and hope. As roughly 80 percent of these women are also mothers, it’s not just their lives that are changed for the better, but their children’s lives as well.. With our focus on the foster care community, this also helps to reunite families in the best environment.
We regularly receive a brief thank you from the recipients, who are thrilled to reenter life with a good job, and the resources to continue learning and achieving. It’s those faces that we put in front of ourselves to remind us that we don’t just merely refurbish computers.
Read more about Televerde’s story here.
A giving spirit begets others to be giving as well. This nonprofit houses 88 families to help them achieve independence from homelessness and poverty with complete wrap-around services that prepare them for employment and permanent housing when they move on. While we promote impact hours for individuals at Revive IT / ER2, we have the most fun when we gather as a group. So we decided that decorating a couple of their administrative buildings with lights and other decorations would truly make their House of Refuge a home. A few hours of organization and focus gave us warm and wonderful results for everyone there to enjoy.
Sheila’s story
And speaking of “giving begets giving,” one of our team members was offered a donation by a neighbor of wreaths for that project at House of Refuge. What we received was actually an amazing display of love and talent wrapped in ribbons and bows. Sheila Logan was an angel, but her story makes the gesture even more touching.
Sheila left her home in New Jersey fleeing an abusive relationship a number of years ago, bringing her teenage daughter with her to stay with her sister.
“Essentially, I was homeless, and with a teaching certificate that couldn’t be used in Arizona, I had to exist on a substitute’s pay to make ends meet,” she explained. She relied on additional help from local nonprofits as well and was able to move into subsidized housing, but admitted asking for help was really hard.
She got her teaching certificate for the state, but suffered an accident which shattered bones in her arms. This limited her ability to teach, but through therapy, she was led to crafting, and saw the limitless creativity in wreath making. Now retired since 2018, she has a full time business in Desert Dreams Wreaths and Creations, and has expanded to selling supplies as the market gets flooded with people in the same business.
Despite dealing with fibromyalgia, PTSD from her past relationship, and severe osteoporosis, Sheila is a joyful, determined woman who now is remarried, and is also mom to two dogs as well as her children. “I’m a doer, I’m a mover - I have to find something to do,” she explains. “God has been so good, and my church family has been so supportive.” She sees her creativity as a way to give back to others in a situation she is all too familiar with. Her story humbles us, but we’re so grateful that our paths crossed in serving others.
There are so many more stories to share from this year based on the efforts within the company and also with our partners at ER2, and we look forward to many more to come in the coming years.
May this season find you with renewed hope, renewed joy, and a renewed spirit of love.