Mentor, Painesville Rotaries Donate Laptops to Juvenile Court Computer Lab

The Painesville and Mentor Rotaries, as well as the Rotary Foundation, donated 12 laptops to Lake County Juvenile Detention Center's computer lab.

 Adam Sanden suggested the donation after he visited the detention center with the rest of the Painesville Rotary in October.

Sanden, who works at the , only saw six computers in the lab, and some were outdated.

Kids who are suspended or expelled from other schools or being held at the detention center can use the computers to keep up with their school work. The detention center holds up to 40 kids and that means there were rarely enough computers to go around before the donation.

However, Lake County Juvenile Court Judge Karen Lawson knew the county budget was tight, so she did not ask for money for more computers.

“We were prepared to make due with what we had, as so many Lake County families have had to do," Lawson said. "Up until now, it has been a balancing act for staff to give access to the computers to as many children as possible, while giving each one enough time to complete their work.”

Sanden first convinced Painesville Rotary to donate $1,700 toward the computers. Then he got the Mentor Rotary to match that. Finally, the Rotary Foundation gave the final $2,500 needed to buy the 12 computers.

"It's a classroom," Sanden said of the lab. "It gets overlooked because of the fact that it's here."

Lawson thanked the Rotary clubs for their generosity.

“Thanks to their contributions, our lab is now complete,” she said.

The computer lab opened in 2009 to allow kids access to online schools already offered by local districts like Mentor Schools' Cardinal Academy, for example. The computers have blocks set up so they can only be used for school work and a teacher of detention center staff member monitors the students while they're using them.

“With Rotary’s donation of 12 laptops, our lab will be able to operate at full capacity, and still have laptops for use by kids who, for security reasons, can’t come to the lab.” Lawson added. “We will make sure that the children in our detention center keep up with their education, whether they like it or not.”