One student says thank you to Robin Turner and Dyson McLaren for his new computer. The spirit of Christmas gift giving continued this week as approximately 50 North Bay children received refurbished computers Wednesday at Dr.
One student says thank you to Robin Turner and Dyson McLaren for his new computer.
The spirit of Christmas gift giving continued this week as approximately 50 North Bay children received refurbished computers Wednesday at Dr. MacDougall Public School on Brooks Street.
Dyson McLaren has been rebuilding and giving the computers to deserving children for several years.
“It’s been going on about six years since 2001. I’ve been giving a lot of computers to children,” says McLaren.
“I work hard … I spend 5 to 6 hours sleeping some days, and I work every weekend on the computers from the time up till the time to go to bed.”
McLaren, who is the custodian at Dr. MacDougall, says the venture is a labour of love that started out of curiosity.
“Yes I started out of interest,” he says.
“I am partly illiterate myself, I’ll be right honest, and I like to see kids work hard in school and get their education.”
He explained his life has been a struggle, but that he has had great support, especially from his mother, and so in return he gives back to the community.
“Why do I do it, for the enjoyment of giving it to a child, that’s the most best thing you could do.”
“They’re an education tool, they are meant for education wise, so the children can do their homework and get very good in computers. Because they learn from computers from junior kindergarten all the way up to grade 12 and university,” he states.
McLaren works out of a small area in his apartment and invests not only his time but puts his own funds towards rebuilding the systems because he knows a great number of children are struggling to keep up because they don’t have a computer at home.
“I wish I had a bigger area, but I can only do what I can do. And if I take money out of my pocket and put it in to the computers, that’s what I’ve been doing, that’s pretty good,” he states
McLaren has recruited help from Robin Turner and Ruth Wilson and says he could not continue the project without them.
“Robin Turner has picked up all my computers, he spends a lot of his time running around for me and I like to see people give a little donation for the gas and whatever and it helps a lot,” he explains.
“Ruth Wilson helps me with loading the computers once and a while, which is very awesome, it’s nice to have the help too. I like to see everybody happy, all the children, and I couldn’t be able to do it now without Robin … he drives me here, he drives me there.”
McLaren says that he works with school officials to devise the list of recipients as he has no real set of guidelines that a child must meet in order to qualify. However, before disbursing the computer systems he insists that safety rules be reviewed.
“I try to go through the principals of the schools,” he states.
“The principals are the most honest people there is and so you go through the principals of the schools. And when I give out a large quantity of computers as today’s, I like to see child safety the fire department here for fire safety and Yvon Montcalm of the police.”
Montcalm took a moment and spoke to the parents and children about the dangers of the Internet. He encouraged the parents to take special interest in what the children are doing while online as well as placing the computer in plain view so they can monitor the children at all times.
“It’s like talking to a stranger,” he told them.
“Don’t hide it in the corner.”
McLaren also spoke from his heart when asking the children to run regular fire drills at home as well as taking time to read to their parents.
As Yvon Montcalm found out as he started to call out the names of the children from a list he retrieved from a sealed envelope, anonymity for the children and their families is very important to McLaren, so instead of calling out names everyone was assigned a number before coming to the school.
“I don’t want to know their names,” he quickly points out on the sheet.
“Just call the number.”
One by one the numbers were called and the families stepped up to gather a keyboard, mouse, monitor and hard drive.
McLaren says donations of computers or money can be dropped off at 139 King Street West Apartment #2 (side door) or by calling 493-1106 or 223-1106.
