YTC WORKS · ONE CONTINUOUS STORY

The work begins in Evanston. Then it travels.

A student learns at a bench, uses that knowledge for someone nearby, and eventually carries it farther. Follow the widening circle—from one clubroom to families, cities, countries and new generations of teachers.

THE LOCAL STORY

First, students become useful to their own city.

The work begins close to home: teaching younger students, helping older neighbors, rebuilding donated equipment and learning how to explain technology patiently to another person.

An ETHS YTC student in a green hoodie helps a Primm Towers resident with a laptop — ETHS students bring technology help and instruction to Primm Towers.

Young students learning how computers work at Mason Park — At Mason Park, younger students explore how computers work through a community-supported YTC program.

Knowledge becomes responsibility when another person is waiting.

In Evanston, YTC students have supported senior residences, schools, community organizations, younger learners and families receiving computers. Each setting asks them to do more than know the answer—it asks them to share it.

Reported at the time

In 2014, Chicago engineering firm Sargent & Lundy donated more than sixty computers and forty monitors to the club. “These Sargent & Lundy computers are the fastest computers we’ve received in a long time,” said Alex Ballmer, then ETHS YTC president. Evanston RoundTable, June 2014 ↗

Four years earlier, students refurbished computers for the museum now known as the Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum. “The YTC was able to provide us with exactly what we needed, and we cajoled a couple laptops out of them as well.” Evanston RoundTable, May 2010 ↗

YTC IN EVANSTON

A city full of places where student learning became community work.

Explore the schools, senior centers, community organizations, camps and partners reached through YTC students and the ETHS club.

Select a marker to see where the work happened and what YTC students contributed.

Open the full map ↗

THE COMPUTER HANDOFF

A computer leaves the clubroom ready for a family.

The repair matters. So does what happens next: a student meets the person receiving the machine, explains it clearly, and turns technical work into a human connection.

A grandmother and granddaughter are introduced to their new computer by a YTC student in a green YTC shirt — Families are introduced to their new computers.

A grandmother and three granddaughters at the Camp Kuumba event — A family arrives seeking access and education.

Two girls at a cart loaded with a donated computer, one giving a peace sign — Loading up the cart to take home.

The handoff is part of the education.

During the spring of 2023, ETHS YTC students worked on more than 100 donated computers. At the Camp Kuumba handoff that June, 70 refurbished machines went to Evanston families.

Families chose a laptop or desktop, then sat with a YTC student who introduced the machine and walked them through using it. Information about low-cost internet service and neighborhood hotspots traveled with the computer.

Families were also invited into free Intro to Arduino classes, allowing a handoff to become a new learning relationship.

See YTC’s Camp Kuumba event record ↗Read the Evanston RoundTable report ↗

Independent reporting and the Christian Zamudio photograph caption: Wendi Kromash, Evanston RoundTable, June 25, 2023.

FROM THE YTC ARCHIVE

The handoff did not begin here.

More than a decade earlier, Evanston YTC students were already refurbishing computers for community organizations.

Sunlight African Community Center donation Watch · 3:49 ↗BooCoo Cultural Center and Café donation Watch · 3:53 ↗

NAMIBIA · 2025

Then students follow the work.

Five YTC members joined an eight-student ETHS delegation to Namibia, following years of refurbishing computers and building relationships from Evanston.

There, the familiar YTC exchange happened face to face: one student worked beside another, knowledge moved across the table, and the equipment became part of a shared experience.

For an ETHS student, the work is no longer an anonymous computer headed somewhere else. It belongs to people and places they can see, remember and continue learning from.

A Namibian classroom full of students raising their hands, with ETHS students standing along the back wall under a TEAMWORK mural — Hands up across the room—ETHS students teaching in a Namibian classroom, July 2025.

STUDENT STORIES

From Evanston to Namibia

Conner, Cecilia and Furqaan entered YTC as students. By the time they reached Namibia, they were helping other young people experience hands-on technology for themselves.

Conner

Conner shows Arduino kits to students at Zanele Mbeki Private School. As a robotics instructor, Conner concluded four years as a member of the YTC family after serving young people both at home and across the world.

Cecilia B.

From joining the Camp Kuumba computer giveaway as a freshman to teaching robotics in Namibia during her senior year.

Furqaan I.

From helping at the Camp Kuumba 100-Computer Giveaway as a freshman to guiding a new class through hands-on robotics in Namibia.

ETHS students and hosts gathered at the U.S. Embassy in Namibia — The ETHS delegation and hosts at the U.S. Embassy in Namibia.

Members of the ETHS delegation riding camels through the Namibian landscape — Beyond the program, shared experiences made the country—and the relationships—real.

YTC@ETHS IN NEW ORLEANS · SPRING 2016

Six ETHS students brought computers—and their time—to two New Orleans communities.

Ten years after Katrina, families and young people were still being denied the technology access that wealthier communities took for granted. Over one spring break, the ETHS team answered with useful work: refurbished machines, hands-on teaching, and a donation to two communities still rebuilding.

They came to give, and to teach.

The ETHS delegation brought five laptops refurbished in Evanston, taught younger students, worked alongside local adults, and processed more than forty additional computers—leaving useful technology in the hands of two communities that needed it.

ETHS students leading a hands-on computer lesson with New Orleans participants — ETHS students lead a hands-on computer lesson with New Orleans participants.

Young Adinkra students gathered around a laptop with a student teacher — Young Adinkra students gather around a laptop as peer teaching becomes real.

The ETHS delegation with its New Orleans hosts — The ETHS delegation with its hosts at the Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal.

THE LOCAL CONNECTOR

Amina DaDa

Chef and community organizer Amina DaDa connected YTC with Adinkra NOLA and Christian Unity Baptist Church. Local students were already using her home when they needed computer access. She helped ETHS students understand that unequal access was not merely a technology problem; it reinforced racial injustice.

6ETHS students

5Evanston-refurbished laptops

40+computers processed

2communities served

Reported at the time

The Daily Northwestern covered the partnership as it formed. ETHS YTC coordinator Margo Scholl: “It’s STEM but it’s also community service… We’re helping at home, but now these kids want to look at helping the wider world.” Founder David Finkel described “a mixture of kids in this program working together and really helping to cross some of the cultural divide within the Evanston community.” The report names Amina DaDa, Adinkra NOLA, Christian Unity Baptist Church and the Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal. Marissa Page, The Daily Northwestern, September 2015 ↗

The trip itself was reported the following spring: “Six Evanston Township High School Youth Technology Corps (YTC) student representatives traveled to New Orleans over spring break to bridge the digital divide.” Evanston RoundTable, June 2016 ↗

COMPUTERS CROSS BORDERS

Sometimes the equipment travels before the students do.

Computers prepared in Evanston have moved through trusted partners to families, schools and youth programs farther away. Each machine carries the evidence of student work—and the possibility of another learner becoming a teacher.

El Salvador

Eight laptops prepared in Evanston were readied for a partner connection in El Salvador.

Laptop donation made through the Proswrites Foundation and YTC

Partner delivery

A laptop handoff through the Proswrites Foundation shows how local preparation can move through a wider community network.

African exchange participants meeting with YTC in Evanston

The network returns

International visitors and partners also bring experience back into Evanston, making the exchange move in both directions.

Haiti

YTC students prepared thirteen laptops for Generations of Hope, an organization supporting orphaned and abandoned children as they build toward self-sufficiency through education, health care and community support. Earlier Evanston donations also reached Haiti through the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti and the Kizin Creole community.

Namibia · Ghana · Ethiopia · Nigeria · Mozambique · Sierra Leone · Cameroon · El Salvador · Haiti

Olumide Kolawole teaching students during a YTC robotics and coding class in Nigeria — Olumide with students during Nigeria’s first YTC robotics and coding class.

A NEW LOCAL BEGINNING

The model begins another journey.

After spending time with YTC students at ETHS through the Community Engagement Exchange, Olumide Kolawole returned home and began adapting the peer-led model for his own community.

At Victokev College, he has now introduced robotics and coding instruction with support from YTC’s technical team. It is a small beginning—and evidence that an experience in Evanston can become an opportunity somewhere else.

Ikorodu · Lagos State · Nigeria

THE WHOLE STORY

All those journeys begin the same way: knowledge changes hands.

A student learns something real, uses it for another person, and becomes responsible for carrying it forward. Evanston is not separate from the wider work. It is where the wider work begins.

KEEP THE CIRCLE MOVING

Strengthen the club that makes every journey possible.

Equipment, mentors, community relationships and student opportunities all begin with a working Evanston clubroom.

Ways to support YTC Evanston Explore the Student Portal