
The
Virginia
Student
Training
and
Refurbishing
(VA
STAR)
program
recently
teamed
up
with
Dr.
Robert
Melvin
and
Smart
Kids
VA
to
distribute
laptops
to
PWCS
students
for
use
in
distance
learning.
Smart
Kids
VA
is
a
local
program
that
works
with
a
community
of
industry
professionals
to
coach
students
in
career
readiness
programs.
VA
STAR
provided
100
laptops
to
Smart
Kids
VA,
and
their
team
of
students
cleaned
up
the
computers,
loaded
them
with
Windows
10
and
Microsoft
Office,
and
activated
them
so
students
could
simply
turn
them
on
and
get
to
work.
VA
STAR
received
the
laptops
back
from
Smart
Kids
VA
and
to
date,
62
of
the
100
laptops
have
been
distributed
to
students
across
the
County.
Additionally,
VA
STAR
launched
a
program,
"10
laptops
in
10
days
at
10
schools,"
to
distribute
laptops
throughout
the
state.
The
program
covers
areas
from
Lynchburg
to
Northumberland
County,
and
as
far
north
as
Clark
County.
The
original
plan
was
to
distribute
laptops
directly
to
students,
however,
with
social
distancing
requirements,
computers
were
distributed
to
schools;
who
in
turn,
distributed
to
their
students.
During
the
school
closure,
VA
STAR
continued
to
work
to
get
as
many
computers
to
students.
Working
from
home,
the
team
was
able
to
prepare
over
300
laptops
for
PWCS
Information
Technology
Services
to
distribute
to
students.
VA
STAR
has
an
additional
400
laptops
ready
to
go
out,
if
and
when
they
are
needed.
While
the
school
closure
and
social
distancing
have
impacted
their
ability
to
obtain
equipment
to
rebuild,
VA
STAR
continues
to
work
and
prepare
as
much
equipment
as
possible.