I donate refurb'ed computers to vets and fund it by scrapping unusable ones

This summer, my son and I started collecting used desktops and laptops to donate to veterans assistance organizations. We refurbish them - wipe drives, add memory and install software - and then deliver them to veterans organizations around Virginia.



Our donors are both individuals and companies. We get a lot of unusable computers, and keep the working spare parts. The corporate donors tend to give us equipment we can't donate - servers, switches, etc. - so we scrap it to support our efforts.

In the 6 months we've been doing this I think we've made every mistake possible for newbie scrappers. Among other things, we tossed old pcs without pulling processors or motherboards - we thought they looked too old to be worth anything!!! We threw away a lot of cables (Eeww! Dirty and sticky!) too, and sold 1000+ pounds of servers for .05/pound. Now we know better, but I'm hoping to avoid more mistakes by hanging out here and learning how to do it right.

Looking forward to meeting others and hearing your stories.