A Geek-A-Thon ® is Kramden Institute's method of streamlining and making uniform the process of computer refurbishing.  While PC's can be refurbished individually, at a Geek-A-Thon ® we bring together 100-300 PC's, many volunteers working in shifts of about 40 people, and our streamlined process.  The process has four steps: Triage (figuring out what the PC needs); Installing and Testing Software; Cleaning; and Final Inspection and Activation.

At a Full Geek-A-Thon ®, over the course of a weekend, typically from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon, about 140 volunteers, working in 4- hour shifts, turn 200-300 donated computers into approximately 180-250 refurbished computers ready to award to deserving students.  Typically 60% of our volunteers are adults, many of whom have a technical background.  The remainder are students from the community.  Volunteers can do less technical tasks, such as cleaning computers, keyboards and mice, or supporting our administrative staff.

At a MINI Geek-A-Thon ®, typically on the third Saturday of some months (see Volunteer Event Schedule), two four-hour shifts each with about 45 volunteers allow the turning of 100-150 donated computers into approximately 120 refurbished computers ready to award to deserving students.

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To date, Kramden has refurbished over 4,000 computer systems through Geek-A-Thons ® alone.

Geek-A-Thons ® are often paired with Award Days where volunteers who have refurbished machines have the opportunity to award the systems to worthy students from the community. Award Days take place on the last day of the Geek-A-Thon ® and typically result in 40 computers finding new homes. The remainder of the computers produced at a GAT are returned to Kramden HQ and awarded to students through other Award Days, through school-sponsored functions and through our other partnerships that help identify youth in need.

The cost to Kramden for a Geek-A-Thon® is approximately $15,000 and we are always looking for venues to hold these events. For information on sponsoring a GAT, please send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

PREVIOUS GEEK-A-THONS ®

Geek-A-Thon®17: 220 Systems Completed!

June 11-13, 2009 at Lenovo's Morrisville Campus. 200+ volunteers worked together to refurbish computers for hardworking children of enlisted men and women stationed at Ft. Bragg. Lenovo employees worked side by side with community volunteers to help refurnish computers. The computers refurbished during this Geek-A-Thon will be brought to Ft. Bragg in August for awarding. On Friday June 10th, three military familes came to Lenovo to receive their newly refurbished Kramden computers.  A big thank you to Lenovo for sponsoring this Geek-A-Thon!

Geek-A-Thon®16: 150 Systems Completed!

March 27-29, 2009 at NC School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, NC.  150+ volunteers worked together to refurbish computers for kids in North Carolina that do not have a computer at home. SIM membersworked side by side with community volunteers, and NCSSM students to help refurnish computers for North Carolina students. On Sunday March 29th, roughly 46 students came to NCSSM to receive their newly refurbished Kramden computers.  A big thank you to SIM for sponsoring this Geek-A-Thon!

Geek-A-Thon®15: 70 Systems Completed!

October 17 - 19, 2008 at Lenovo's new fulfillment center in Whitsett, NC.  130+ volunteers worked together to refurbish computers for kids in need. Lenovo employees worked side by side with community volunteers to help prepare computers for children in Guilford County.  On Sunday October 19th, roughly 40 Guilford County children and their families came to the fulfillment center to receive newly refurbished Lenovo computers.  A big thank you to Lenovo for sponsoring this Geek-A-Thon and for donating so much equipment to the recipients.

Geek-A-Thon® 14: 200 Systems Completed!

May 31 - June 1st, 2008 at The Emily K. Center in Durham, NC.  Over 100 volunteers rallied together to help refurbish roughly 200 systems for kids in need.  Thanks so much to Lenovo for sponsoring this wonderful Geek-A-Thon, and special thanks to everyone at Emily K. for hosting us!  Food donors were Bull City Bakery, Parker & Otis, Cinelli's Pizza, and Jimmy John's of RTP.  On June 1st, around 40 children and their families came to the Emily K. Center to receive newly refurbished computers.  Half of these recipients were Emily K. children and families.

Geek-a-Thon® 13: 200 Systems Completed!
April 4-6, 2008 at North Carolina School of Science and Math.
Another success! 155 volunteers came and helped and the great NCSSM students were wonderful and enthusiastic. Thanks so much to the Society for Information Management (SIM) which sponsored the event and the great donations of food by Jimmy Johns, Cinelli's Pizza, Honey Baked Ham, Bull City Bakery, Panera and Krispy Kreme. We also had an award ceremony on Sunday April 6 where 40 more Durham Habitat for Humanity families received PCs. Now ALL Durham Habitat families with school age children have PCs. Thanks to our great volunteers!

Geek-a-Thon® 12: 200 Systems Completed!
February 15-17, 2008 at ECPI College of Technology.

Geek-A-Thon® 11: 198 Systems Completed!
October 5-7, 2007 at Centennial Campus Middle School on NC State's Centennial Campus.
This event was held in honor of the 40th anniversary of the NCSU Computer Sciences Program. The event was sponsored by NCSU Computer Science, Women in Computer Science, Kramden Institute, and largely funded by the Society for Information Management. About 40 percent of the 160 volunteers came from Kramden Institute's volunteer ranks and the remainder were students and some faculty from NCSU. In three days, we fully completed 198 refurbished PCs, nearly completed another 45, and worked on 300 in all. On Saturday and Sunday, 68 of the 198 completed computers were given to recipient students, mostly from our host Centennial Campus Middle School.

Geek-A-Thon® 10: 136 Systems Completed! For the troops!
July 25-28, 2007 at Ft. Bragg.
Held computers refurbished at this event were donated to children of U.S. Army enlisted personnel stationed at Ft. Bragg and deployed abroad. We broke our one-day completion record with 136 PC's finished, and in all had 205 computers for the troops.
Sponsored by Lenovo, 130 volunteers, from Lenovo and from Kramden Institute pitched in, during 4-hour shifts over the 3.5 days. Computers were donated by Lenovo and Sprint. Parts came from LabCorp and Boston Acoustics. Four enlisted men and their families came up on Thursday as an advance guard and each family received a newly-refurbished PC. Two of the soldiers will soon be deployed to Iraq and one had just returned from Afghanistan the week before.

Geek-A-Thon® 9: 200 Systems Completed!
April 27-30, 2007 at Cisco Systems in RTP.
A success! We had approx. 110 volunteers, half of them Cisco employees over five 4-hour shifts. Some 240 computers were worked on and 200 reached completion or near completion. As a bonus, 23 students and their families arrived Sunday to receive computers. The venue was fantastic, and Cisco was a very generous and hospitable host. Thanks especially to Diane Mahar, a Cisco employee and KI volunteer who spearheaded the effort, and Ruth McCullers-Lee and Ed Paradise of Cisco for their generous support. Sam Evans and Meredith Conder spent countless hours setting up and managing the event from the KI side. Panera Bread made major donations of food, and our new partner, ClearWire, provided internet services at a greatly discounted rate to our recipients (without telephone or cable needs). Thank you, Cisco!

Geek-A-Thon® 8: 191 Systems Completed!
February 2-4, 2007, at ECPI College of Technology, Raleigh.
We completed 191 of 200 computers. 79 volunteers worked 577 hours with the average volunteer working two 4-hour shifts. Great work! Thanks to ECPI College of Technology for providing the space and half our volunteer staff, Sprint/Nextel for donating the 200 computers and Panera Bread for food. Half of the completed PCs were donated to a school in Sampson County, a very poor rural NC county. Another set of PCs were given to blind students from the Governor Morehead School for the Blind. A Give-A-Thon event on February 17 saw another 20 families from Wake and Durham Counties pick up their first home PC.

Geek-A-Thon® 7: 230 Systems Completed!
October 6-9, 2006, NC School of Science and Mathematics.
We had a goal of completing 150 computers. On day one we had completed 188, and had to go back to our storage unit for 50 more. In all, 230 were completed! 110 Volunteers worked 630 hours over the weekend to make this our biggest success ever (our previous record was 142 in a weekend!). Approximately 70 NCSSM students participated along with 40 KI volunteers. Thanks also to Panera Bread Co. for Donation of food.

Geek-A-Thon® 6: 80 systems Completed!
August 10-12, 2006 held at Kramden headquarters. We had an abbreviated format due to space limitations, yet we had 67 volunteers work in four shifts over 18 hours. A total of 80 computer systems were completed for the kids with another 30 taken to near-completion. KI expresses thanks to our great volunteers and special thanks to our most frequent volunteers: warehouse manager Joe Diver, Sam Evans, Dave Tuza and Ned Dibner. We had seven sets of parent/student volunteers at the event. Thanks also to Lowe's Foods for donation of food and Lenovo for donation of visors and volunteers. It was, as usual, FUN. And the kids will be the winners.

Geek-A-Thon® 5: 98 Systems Completed!
May 2-4, 2006 at InfoSystems Technology, Inc.
We worked on about 150 computers, finishing 98 of them, and bringing another 11 up to the final check stage. Another 25 or so are in various stages of refurbishing and we sent another 15 to our environmental recycler. We received about 45 donated computers during the event and our wonderful volunteers, about 85 in number, gave up part of their Mother's Day weekend to help the kids. InfoSystems Technology Inc. donated the workspace and 20 computers. Our Founding Sponsor, Lenovo, provided volunteers and technical support. Thank you to our SuperGeek Committee for technical guidance and our numerous other donors and volunteers for their caring and time!

Geek-A-Thon® 4: 131 Systems Completed!
March 24 to 27, 2006 at Riverside High School.
This event was performed in partnership with Durham Public Schools, combining our volunteer corps with Riverside's technology program students and faculty. We completed 131 computer systems, had another 75 just one or two steps from completion, and discarded only 35. We worked through 241 PCs in just 22 hours! In addition, 45 donors came by to contribute approximately 180 pieces of additional equipment.

Geek-A-Thon® 3: 75 Systems Completed!
February 25 and 26 at the ECPI College of Technology.
Seventy volunteers worked in 4-hour shifts and prepared 75 computer systems for deserving middle school kids. This was our first Wake County Geek-A-Thon.

Geek-A-Thon® 2: 89 SystemsCompleted!
November 4-6, 2005, NC School of Science and Math.
Two days of computer repair, education, and fun to benefit the less-advantaged children of North Carolina’s Research Triangle region. We worked six shifts of 4-5 hours each. In all, 137 volunteers helped out at this event. 820 volunteer hours! 89 CPUs, 95 monitors and 95 keyboard/mouse combinations went to the Durham Public School system for donation to the less-advantaged kids in their middle school. An additional 25-30 were partially completed, to be done during our next Geek-A-Thon. 27 Donors brought over 30 monitors and 27 CPUs plus assorted printers and other equipment

Geek-A-Thon® 1: 142 Systems Completed!
Well, we had no internet access for the first day and our truck blew a tire on the way to the Durham Public Schools, but it was a huge success. We had 71 volunteers over the 3-day event plus the setup and takedown days. Included in the volunteers were some 12 parent/child or husband/wife teams. We had about 30 volunteers each day and many people worked 2-3 days. We donated 142 completed computers, 148 monitors, and 151 keyboard /mouse/ power cable sets to the Durham Public Schools. Sixty donors brought over 100 pieces of equipment to the event. We scrapped (through environmentally sound recycling) about 50 PCs, and about 55 smaller or non-working monitors, plus 7 printers and 2 scanners. We returned to storage about 20 PCs and 8 monitors. People worked hard. We put in 11-13 hrs per day.

Cathy Ma (front).