£5m raised for laptops ... and they can’t thank you enough
Camelot’s fantastic £1m sends our campaign fund soaring
MAIL Force hit the jackpot yesterday with a thumping £1million donation from Camelot.
The National Lottery operator’s awesome offer to match reader donations sent the campaign to get laptops to lockdown pupils soaring.
In less than a week, £5million has been raised and thousands of computers pledged – and this is just the beginning.
Cheques, online payments and text and phone donations from the Mail’s generous readers have already topped £800,000, meaning Camelot’s pledge to match up to £1million will soon be taken up in full.
It caps a phenomenal start for the Computers for Kids campaign – which was only launched last Saturday.
And just six days into the drive, yesterday the first Mail Force laptops were placed in the hands of grateful students.
Art student Daria Nicu, 17, said: ‘Thank you. What Daily Mail readers have done is really a wonderful thing.’ Twenty state-ofthe-art Surface 2 Go Windows devices were added to a consignment of nearly 300 Dell machines given to West London College in Hammersmith by the Government, in a test run of our scheme to top up schools’ allocations.
The college’s deputy principal James Taylor said: ‘They are a godsend.’
Mail Force is working in partnership with the Government to boost its own programme to help schoolchildren stuck at home without a device to access their online lessons.
Some of the UK’s biggest companies have also signed up, pledging both cash and second-hand laptops, which for around £15 can be refurbished for school use.
Mail Force will also seek alternative sources of new devices to complement the Department for Education’s drive, and will fund other ways to assist children with e-learning.
Yesterday Nigel Railton, Camelot’s chief executive, said: ‘National Lottery players have been fundamental to the national effort, with more than £800million in funding directed to good causes supporting people through the pandemic.
‘Hundreds of volunteers and projects have responded with brilliant initiatives to lend a hand with everything from tackling loneliness to delivering food parcels, while National Lottery retailers have kept their doors open to serve communities.
‘Separately, at Camelot, we have been fortunate to be in a position to have provided office space to the NHS, backed local charities and are now delighted to be able to support Mail Force’s hugely important Computers for Kids campaign by committing to matchfund the amount raised by Daily
Mail readers, up to £ 1million. Amazing things happen when we all work together and this campaign is yet another incredible example of that.’ Camelot’s donation is from the company’s own coffers – and not from lottery cash earmarked to good causes.
Bonnie Steer, a Camelot contact centre agent, added: ‘The way we now helping the nation’s schoolchildren throughout the pandemic makes me so proud.’
Mail Force’s Computers for Kids drive has been backed by Lloyds
Banking Group, Sainsbury’s, Direct Line insurance, fashion retailer Boohoo, innovation firm Peak Scientific and others who have brought the total to £5million.
In an extraordinary week, many other leading UK businesses have been in touch to ask how to donate laptops. Second-hand company devices are securely wiped by our IT specialist partner, before being reconfigured for schools’ use.
A third of families in the UK say they do not have enough devices for their children to learn online,
and schools are shut until March 8 at the earliest. The Department for Education has thrown itself into the challenge, buying 1.3 million laptops, of which nearly 900,000 have already been distributed, in one of the biggest technology programmes it has ever run. On the Mail Force online donations page, more than 10,000 people have stepped forward with cash. Among them yesterday was a £15 donation on behalf of schoolgirl Anabella, who has her own tablet and wanted to help less fortunate children who do not have one.
Grandfather George Herbert contributed £30, with the message: ‘My grandchildren have what they need to learn online. I hope this small gift offers the same to someone else’s grandchild.’
Learning support assistant Rachel, who is working with the children of key workers in school during lockdown and donated £15, wrote: ‘I have two teenage children who have to do their schoolwork online at home. Children should be at school, but if they can’t then they need to be able to do their work online from home.’
Another reader, Caroline, donated £25 with the message: ‘I hope this will go towards helping one child who has been stuck at home in the pandemic and make schooling a little easier.’
Cleton Charles, who gave £30, said: ‘We need to have a future and the school children are the future.’