Looking for possible help...

[A Guy Named Joe]

Hello everyone, A Guy Named Joe here, or AGN Joe for short.

I wanted to put this out to everyone in case you might be in a generous mood and would be willing to help out a fellow computerphile.

I work as a Switch tech for a telecom company by day, but in my spare time, I help my community by working on computers for community services, my local church, and organizations I support like AA or NA (Alcoholics/Narcotics Anonymous). What I do is I either upgrade the computers these organizations have for free with spare parts donated to me, or I find spare parts that people donate to me, and if I get enough parts, I can then rebuild a computer that these organizations use.
I've done so well, I have built several computers for AA/NA programs, 2 for a community center, and I'm working with my local church right now to help build or upgrade computers.
Here's where you can help. I'm looking for donations of ANY kind, from the smallest parts like cables or fans, to the biggest parts, CPU's, mobo's, cases, etc.---ANYTHING that you can donate.

If you are willing to help, please contact me at agnjoe1@yahoo.com or jzeug@hotmail.com.

I can't pay for the parts or the shipping for the parts. However, you get the satisfaction that the parts you donate will go to a worthy cause in helping other less fortunate people who NEED these parts. If you are willing to help, please e-mail me at agnjoe1@yahoo.com or jzeug@hotmail.com.

Also, if you need to verify I'm telling the truth(there are shifty people out there running scams, i know) please contact me, and I can provide proof I'm legit.

Thanks, and I hope you'll be contacting me soon.

AGN Joe
aka
Joe Zeug

[FX]

Hi Joe,

Good idea, and nice to see someone's doing it.
Perhaps you could get a few pictures taken of you helping one of these groups out, and post them for people to see. It's only a suggestions, but pictures are worth a 1000 words.

Good Luck with this.

[fishies]

It is a god idea.
It is, however, highly unlikely people will foot the bill for shipping. You'd be better off looking into corporate donations and the like. I am sure your company doles out some money each year to charity. Why shouldn't it be yours? It's local and it makes a difference in your community.

Just my $0.02

[A Guy Named Joe]

Scarab, I'll try to get future picts of me helping out at local community centers. Never occured to get some picts while working. Thanks for the help.

fishies, I agree it's hard to find people to flip the bill to ship out their stuff to me. However, newer laws in certain states ask that people pay to have their computer stuff discarded, and if found that they are dumping computer parts in normal garbage and they're caught, they face a huge fine, because the stuff is toxic.
What I'm trying to do is offer a viable alternative to them. You could pay to have your stuff dumped in at a recycling center, or just send the stuff to me, and I can recycle it for you in hopes to reuse it for people that need the equipment and you get a sense of satisfaction that this stuff isn't in a landfill rotting away.

Thanks you two for posting!

[Chapel]

Hey man i think its a great idea.

I have a dummy case that im using while i mod my current one, and i could prolly scrounge some parts up. I know that i have some cables, and fans, and i think an optical drive i can donate. Im sure you will be hearing from me.

P.S. A tip: If you can, mail people recipets and push the whole tax right off thing. If you can prove that they donated it to you, and get a fair market value for the parts then people can deduct them from their taxes, and that is usually insentive enough for most folks. Good luck on your quest

[A Guy Named Joe]

I'm working on the tax receipt thing with the IRS, but the problem is any parts I receive from people, while they would get the tax breaks, I would get stuck and have to report it as income until such point I donate my refurbished computers or computer parts to non-profit organizations. I'm asking for a non-profit tax code for this from the IRS so I won't get hit up with the income, that way I can write it off as well, however, I have to prove it's a non-profit business, and there are a few other requirements I don't meet...yet. It may take a while before I can offer tax receipts, but I would like to offer that in the future.
As long as it's gifted for now, I don't get hit with accumulating the parts and calling it income. So, it's kind of a Catch-22, if you get what I mean.
But I'll keep working on it.

And I'll be looking for your e-mail! I can use almost anything you send!