Providing Technology to Non Profits

ALOOOOOHAAAAA !!!!

GoFundMe suggests that we give a lot of details as donors like to understand exactly what the need is. So, this is very detailed.. and of course, long. But well worth the read !

We are www.HawaiianHope.org  A technology based non profit organization in Honolulu Hawaii. Hawaiian Hope Org is currently an all volunteer organization. We have no paid staff and no government grants of any kind (your tax dollars). For the most part we are self funded. We do some really cool, awesome and wonderful things that you are absolutely going to LOVE ! 
And, we will share that with you in just a minute.

First, we have a question.
Did you ever get a "FREE GIFT" and then later on realize that free gift, was not so free ? 

You know what I mean......  Like, when your friend gives your child a "FREE Puppy".. your child is all excited thinking.. "Puppy ! Puppy ! Puppy !"  And all that is going through your mind is "vet bills, dog food, chewed up shoes, potty training (carpet cleaning) and broken lamps" Yep, the puppy was free. feeding him... is not. And imagine, that once cute little puppy - is now 125 pounds. That is a LOT of dog food every week.

That pretty much sums up where we are at.

For about 2 months now I have been trying to come up with the right way to tell our story of what we are going through, so everyone out there could understand. The bottom line is: We started out small, we have grown, and grown, and our free gifts are getting larger and larger, and, it is costing us more and more to manage those free gifts. Now we REALLY need some help.

Now, What we do.
1) ONE of our projects is computer refurbishing :
We take in computers that are donated to us, fix them up and then give them away. We give away free computers to homeless shelters, clean and sober houses, prisoner re-entry programs, low income families, churches, schools, students and the homeless. To date we have given away over 1,000 free computers.

Now here is one of our complications. Those (free) computer donations that are coming into us are getting larger and larger. And, as fast as we can fix the computers up and get them out the door, more and more are coming in. It's a great problem to have that so many people around us are so generous. We love it ! But we are now packed to capacity with storage as we have over 1,000 computers in stock. It is so tight, in fact, that we can not get more than 3 volunteers at a time in our place to work on computers. We MUST get a larger space. If we had more space, we could get more volunteers to work on the computers at the same time. We would be able to sort through and organize a lot better, and process that much more computers faster.

And the donations keep coming in, Bigger, and Bigger ! Last week we got a phone call, One of the local hotels has upgraded all of their computers and they are donating the old ones (just 3 years old) to us. How many ? Over 200 computers !

And no kidding, 3 days later we get another phone call. A local business has closed down and they are donating all of the computers to us. How many computers ? They "said" over 200. Yes, I guess that is "sort of" accurate. When we went there to count them, what we actually discovered is there are close to 500 computers ! Wow !

Wait, it gets better ! Not only are they donating 500 computers, but the full content of the business. All tables, chairs, desks, file cabinets, cubicles.... Everything. Full liquidation, all donated to us. It is roughly 30,000 square feet of stuff. We have already made arrangements for about 100 schools and other non profits to come and pick out what they want, but still, you know there are going to be leftovers. This is now our largest donation we ever got.

And bigger donations means more storage until we can get to refurbishing the computers. Even if we can refurbish 20 computers per day we are here, it will still take us about 9 months to do them all. And of course, more will be coming in while we are working on those. Do you have any idea how much space 1,700 computers take up ? Lets just say its a lot of "dog food" to pay for.

Transportation and costs.
Another issue with receiving such wonderful gifts, is simply transporting everything. In our last large donation, another full liquidation, one of the items we got was a full size, $30,000 copier ! WHOO HOOOO !!! The copier was "free", but it is so big that we had to rent a special truck and it cost us $500 just to move it to our site. That was $500 out of pocket to receive the "free" gift. It has since paid for itself, but still we had to spend the $500 first and our budget back then was already tight.

Free Van !
With our newest large donation, one of our volunteers has stepped up and told us "Hey, you are going to need a van to move all of that stuff !" So he has decided he is now donating a van to us. This is fantastic as we desperately need a vehicle to move donations. But, the "free van" will also cost us insurance, gas, parking, maintenance, registration and a host of other expenses. Yes, we need it, but now we also really need help in covering the expenses for this new free gift.

Watch our video ! Big Donation to kids at school.
See that picture at the top of this page ? We gave away over 100 computers to students of a single school. Every student in the 4th, 5th and 6th grade of a local school got a free computer to take home. The impact that it had was almost immediate. We received a letter from the department of education that told us within 6 months the test scores of the school went up so much, it brought the school out of remedial status. Watch the video ! Now, imagine, we plan to do that with 2,000 kids, every single student on one of our islands. Then after that ? Who knows....Another island ?

2) What else do we do ? Is there more ?
Yes, there is more. In fact, a lot more. All of that discussion above is only our computer refurbishing project. Some of what else we do is :

- Tech Training :
As Hawaiian Hope Org receives computers as donations on a regular basis. We have volunteers that are homeless as well as experienced technicians work on refurbishing the computers and prepare them for redistribution. Our experienced Volunteers assist in teaching our newer volunteers in our Standard Operating Procedures (SOP's) for things such as hard drive handling and data destruction to ensure a donors data is properly wiped from the computers and is no longer accessible. Using these donated and refurbished computers, we participate in events such as the Job Fairs where hundreds of people a day can access the computers, and we also have volunteers and "tech trainees" assist them in creating and editing resumes and securing better employment opportunities.


- Online Data Management :
Hawaiian Hope has developed a web based data management system that several agencies here in Hawaii use to manage their homeless shelters. Using our system, we currently manage the data of over 15,000 current and formerly homeless people. We are now in the process of RE developing this web based management software to meet the needs of the greater non-profit community. Once completed, Non profit organizations nation wide will be able to use this software to help manage their homeless shelters, clean and sober houses, food banks, retail snack and coffee shops and a variety of other organizations, functions and needs.

- Internet Cafe :
We operate an internet cafe for the purpose of providing computer access with tech and retail job training. At our Internet Cafe we use the computers donated to us and fixed by our tech trainee volunteers. We have a snack bar where we sell chips, snacks and soda. Our prices are deliberately inexpensive so they are affordable as we do not want to alienate our own clients with high prices. We sell cans of soda for 60 cents, bags of chips for 75 cents, and cups of noodles for 50 cents.

At our internet cafe, almost all of our volunteers that run the daily operations are homeless or severely low income. This includes the manager and assistant manager. Both have been trained directly by the Executive Director of Hawaiian Hope Org.

All volunteers of the Internet Cafe are trained on the full aspects of running a retail business. Training is done through a manual - paper process and not a computerized point of sale system. This ensures that our trainees fully understand the process of performing the task, and are not relying on a computer to do the job for them.

Most recently, our volunteer Manager (who has been homeless for about 7 years) just got a full time job with a local chain convenience store. Now, only two months on the job has already gotten a promotion.

In closing :
So here is the real kicker. That overall, what we are capable of, we have not even really started.  It appears that we are the only non profit organization on the entire island that does what we do. In fact, we are researching it now, but we may be the only non profit in the entire state that does what we do. And we estimate that with all of the computers we get in, we are getting less than 1% of all of the computers available to us. Can you imagine what we could do, how many computers we could give away, how many people and kids we could help, and how many lives we could change, if we only hit 10% of our capacity ?

With your help, we can make this happen. Donate today to help us feed our cute little puppy of a project that has grown into a massive in motion forward moving force. Your donations will help us secure better storage, a better tech facility and a better ability for us to manage our projects. It will not only help us, but it will help literally thousands of others get technology into their hands and give them the opportunity to really grow.

Please donate today !


Now, some Background on Homelessness in the State of Hawaii :
Unlike a number of other places in the USA, in Hawaii the single largest cause of homelessness is simply people running out of money and lack of affordable housing.

It is reported that each year an estimated 13,000 - 15,000 people experience homelessness in Hawaii. However, according to published data from the Hawaii Food Bank, roughly 20% of the states population (1 in 5 people), or almost 300,000 people, received food from a food bank last year. With almost 300,000 people getting food from a food bank, it is amazing that we "only" have 15,000 homeless a year.

On every island in Hawaii families are sleeping in tents on the beaches, in their cars, tucked away in caves, and camped in public parks. Homeless parents work full time jobs while children do their homework by flashlight. Many of our elderly have to decide between medication or food at the grocery store, and the mentally ill of our state are left with little resource but to sleep outside. Homelessness in Hawaii is a growing epidemic, and these statistics are heartbreaking:

(ranges represent different years)
* The food bank served almost 300,000 people last year.

* Statewide, 13,000 - 15,000 people experience homelessness at some point of the year. A full 1.2% of the states population. No where else in the country is it this high.

* Roughly 6,000 are homeless at any given day.

* 25%-30% of those living without housing are children.

* 14%-19% of the homeless are veterans.

(These two categories, children and veterans, make up roughly 45% of the homeless in Hawaii)

* 19% - 23% of Hawaii's Homeless have attended some level of college, many have graduated and even have advanced degrees.

* 22%-35% of Hawaii’s homeless have some form of employment.

* 32%-40% of the homeless are of Native Hawaiian ethnicity.