Barclays’ £500k boost

MAIL Force was given a double boost yesterday by big companies.

Barclays pledged a stunning £500,000 to the campaign to help schoolchildren get online.

And software firm Adobe offered a further £10,000 – every penny of which will be spent on buying new computers or refurbishing donated ones.

It means the total raised in cash and computers by the Mail Force charity now stands at more than £11.4million.

As schools prepare to reopen today, teachers face the herculean task of helping pupils catch up on months of lost learning. It is a challenge made all the more daunting by the ‘digital divide’ – the yawning gap between families with enough devices and those without.

Thanks to the Daily Mail’s Computers for Kids campaign, thousands more children will now have a laptop or tablet to access schoolwork in the evenings and at weekends. And the sensational gift from

Barclays will fund thousands more. Matt Hammerstein, chief executive of Barclays UK, said: ‘Whilst the return to classrooms will be hugely beneficial for our children, the digital divide exposed over the last year will not disappear as schools revert to face- to- face learning. Campaigns such as this remain vital. We are proud to be supporting Mail Force.’

The first mass batch of Mail Force laptop deliveries went to schools across the country last week. Some 5,000 Chromebooks and other models were shipped to more than 100 towns and villages. Hundreds more will follow, until the Mail Force funds run out – and yesterday software giant Adobe helped to put off that day a little longer. Its generous donation will buy new laptops or be spent on refurbishing used computers donated by other big firms. Lee

Edwards, Abode’s vice president of UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa, said: ‘Education and digital literacy is vital for every child, which is why being able to support the valuable efforts of Computers for Kids is one of the many ways companies such as our own can help.’