A Texas company has partnered with the National Football League and the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce to offer free laptop computers to help bridge the digital divide in Southern Nevada.
Comp-U-Dopt, a Houston-based nonprofit organization that works to fill that divide nationally, will give out close to 250 refurbished laptops to families in the Las Vegas Valley who don’t have a home computer.
The computers, which the organization wipes and repurposes after use in the corporate world, will be delivered this week during the lead-up to the NFL’s Pro Bowl game at Allegiant Stadium.
As of last week, more than 2,000 eligible area households had applied for a computer.
“When we did our research on Las Vegas, we found that there was a need for the service that we provide,” said Megan Steckly, CEO of Comp-U-Dopt. “The digital divide existed long before COVID-19 was an issue, but the pandemic certainly helped bring it to light.”
According to a Pew Research Center study from 2021, roughly a quarter of U.S. adults with incomes below $30,000 said they don’t own a smartphone.
More than 40% said they don’t have home broadband services or a desktop or laptop computer.
Since American society—especially during the pandemic—is so reliant on reliable internet access, many families, Steckly said, are at a disadvantage.
Steckly said her organization helped gauge the need in Las Vegas from a 2019 Pew Research Center report, which showed that 12,000 area households didn’t have a desktop or laptop computer.
“Computers and access to the internet have become a basic need,” Steckly said. “It’s not only in education, as we’ve seen with distance learning arrangements during the pandemic, but also for job searches, telehealth appointments and other needs. A person can do certain things on a cellphone, but they aren’t adequate for many tasks that people have to do.”
As Peter Guzman, president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, put it, the program “will give qualifying families access to connect to the world.”
In addition to the computers, complete with two-year warranties, recipients will also receive two years of tech support for the machines. Since Comp-U-Dopt was founded 15 years ago, Steckly estimates the organization has kept over 500 tons of e-waste out of landfills.
She said the organization, which gets most of its money from fundraising, now has an annual operating budget of $36 million and that the NFL made a “sizable” contribution to the effort in Las Vegas.
When Comp-U-Dopt started, it served only the Houston and Galveston areas in Texas, but it now works with over 20,000 households per year across the country.
“This is our first time in the Las Vegas market, and we’re excited about that,” Steckly said. “When we did our research, we found nothing in the entire state of Nevada that does what we do to offer free computers.”
Steckly said it’s likely that close to 15 million households in the U.S. do not have a computer.
“We’re proud about what we’ve done and what we work to accomplish, but it’s still just a drop in the bucket,” Steckly said. “The digital divide is still huge, and not much is being done about it. Our model is a simple one—we give a second life to corporate computers. We think it’s an elegant solution.”
With so many people on the application list who won’t receive a computer, Guzman said he’s hopeful that additional rounds of the program will happen. Steckly said the folks at Comp-U-Dopt plan to help make that a reality.
“Since immigrants in the Latino community often have issues with registering or signing up for services, we tend to find that people might not sign up for a program like this, but that’s not what we saw here.,” Guzman said. “This will really help.”
For those who might wish to donate to possible future rounds of the program, Guzman said the easiest way would be to get in touch with the Latin Chamber.