Bigger dreams (chromebooks)

Good morning all,

If given the capital, I think I'd buy a bunch of chromebooks to get as many people connected as possible.  It costs me $30 and an hour or two to get a donated laptop ready for a client.  Usually I have to buy and install a screen, or hard drive, then get linux to install.  I'm wondering if chrome OS would install as easily on old hardware as debian.  But for $105, I can get used chromebooks that already work.  Maybe a hybrid approach, where I keep repairing old stuff but also buy as many used but working chromebooks as the grant/my gofundme would allow.

gf.me/u/xxdhrw  if you want to help.

Then, the next question is where to send them.  I think my friend in Winsted who does lots of charity work (food banks, referrals for mental health services) can help me.  In school, I always asked the person donating the computer who they'd like it to go to, or asked the school social worker or the counselors.  For Covid, I think the kindles and tablets that can't do phone calls or video conferencing should go to nursing homes where seniors are bored and need reading material.  They could also go to the Little Free Libraries in town, so kids or whoever visited them would have online books to read.

The mistake I've made in the past is to buy things with my own money and put myself in credit card debt trying to help others.  I can't do that again, I have to ensure that the charity has the funds BEFORE helping others.  My family has to come first.

Status of donated machines:
Celeron Asus: needs a hard drive, then will accept Mint and be fully functional
4 donated machines from my house: need power supplies and wiping/linux installs.  One needs a screen, one needs a hard drive.
Surface: donated yesterday, can't get it to run windows (yet) or ubuntu or mint (yet).  Researching, will take some hours.
4 Kindles: all reset, testing for video conferencing.  Not all have cameras, zoom doesn't work (not in amazon app store).  Need to research to see if they will work with any telecom (hangouts, facebook messenger etc.)


Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you are all well.

Gratefully,

~Mark