Getting “lean” with packaging.

This interesting article about recycling packaging materials was written by Lisa Schmidt, Empower Up board member and chair of the Clark County Solid Waste Advisory Committee.

October Collection Events

Empower Up is participating in two electronics recycling events this month.

Saturday Oct. 8 - 9am to 1pm

Clark County Environmental Services Event Collecting: Household Hazardous Waste (HHW), Block Foam, Computers and electronics (including monitors and TVs).

Padden Parkway

Clark County Public Works

4700 NE 78th Street

Vancouver

Saturday Oct. 23 - 9am to 1pm

SW Washington Chapter of Credit Unions Annual Shred Day and E-cycling Event. Collecting: Computers and electronics. NO TVs, NO MONITORS, NO BLOCK FOAM accepted at this event.

JC Penny Parking Lot

Columbia Tech Center

19005 SE Mill Plain Blvd.

Vancouver, WA 98683

Parking lot is located off of 192nd Ave.

Star Trek at the Kiggins

Empower Up Presents: Star Trek (2009) at the New Kiggins Theater. Come out and support Empower Up and the Kiggins Theater and catch a great sci-fi action movie in the process. 100% of ticket sales will be donated to Empower Up. One night only, don't miss it!

$6 at the door, no advanced sales.

Sunday, Sept 18
7:00pm (doors open at 6:30pm)
The New Kiggins Theater
1011 Main Street, Vancouver, WA

Local nonprofit agencies recognized for success

Get the scoop on Empower Up and all the other organizations that were recognized at the 2011 Non-profit Excellence Awards.

Volunteer Spotlight

by Collin Neuhauser, Volunteer

Volunteer Ken Lovall

Ken Loveall, a volunteer at Empower Up, has an intriguing history of working for the county and continues to use his skills to better the community. He worked for 23 years with the county and spent his last 13 years there as a programmer and cartographer. For a large portion of those years he worked as lead programmer for the County’s revolutionary Geographical Information Service (GIS). For that project he was required, along with 21 one others at the program’s highest point, to bring together terabytes of spatial and attributable data. His team was successful after four difficult years of work on their state-of-the-art project. The GIS system has come in handy for many residents of the region as it is possible to research the value of neighbor’s, client’s, and personal property holdings. Check out the website by clicking here or by going to http://gis.clark.wa.gov/gishome/.

Ken, now retired, has donated his time and extensive knowledge of database development to Empower Up. He is currently working on a volunteer database, made from scratch, to replace one that has been giving the organization usability problems. Ken’s goal is to deliver a product, using free open source software, that will enable staff to access volunteer information efficiently and will be supported by his expertise if any issue should come up. 

Ken has explained his dedicated volunteerism by stating that he loves programming but needs a reason to do it, enjoys the feeling of accomplishment after completing a difficult project, and just wanted to be able to give back to the community. Everyone at Empower Up is in anticipation of using Ken’s database product, first glances are very promising! 

Ken also helps out Empower Up by tabling events and working on computers, with an emphasis on Macintosh computers. He is a valuable member of the Empower Up volunteer team. Ken is very patient and thoughtful when working with other volunteers. Everyone looks forward to working with Ken as he brightens the day with his pleasant demeanor, candid intelligence, bow-ties, and love of sci-fi.

Super Summer Sale!!!

This Friday & Saturday, July 29th & 30th, Empower Up is having a huge sale! 25% OFF everything in the store, including laptops, dual-core towers and flat screen TVs. The greatest savings of the year, so don't miss out!

Battleground Collection Event

Join us this Saturday for our Battleground Collection Event at the NE Corner of 5th Ave and 1st Street. Empower Up and Clark County will be collecting electronics, HHW and block foam from 9am to 1pm.

Empower Up welcomes new board members.

The Daily Insider covers the addition of new members to our board of directors. Welcome on board (pun very much intended) Jim, Michael and Lisa!

Join us for Earth Day!

Join Empower Up at Salmon Creek Park for the Clark Public Utilities Stream Team - Earth Day Celebration. Eco-fair is today from 10am to 2pm. Live music show starts at noon. We'll be helping kids make wind chimes and other fun sculptures from recycled computer parts.

Earth Day at Marshall Center

We will be celebrating Earth Day at Marshall Center today from 11am to 4pm. Join us for all the fun.

Electronics Round-up in Ridgefield this Saturday

Empower Up and Clark County Public Works are collecting computers, electronics and block foam at Ridgefield High School on Saturday, April 2 from 9am to 1pm.

First Projector Test

Our projector donation to the Friends of the Kiggin's passed the first test - the projector is powerful enough to work in the New Kiggin's Theater - an 8o foot throw to a 60 foot wide screen! Next we'll be testing the HD (1600x900) resolution to see if the quality is up movie theater standards and there needs to be some problem solving around where we mount it. All in all a good test - picture looked pretty good even at 1024x768 and was bright enough to see even with the house lights on...you gotta love a 4,500 lumen projector.

Non-profit grants in the media

Empower Up has granted 13 computers to local non-profit organizations for the month of January. We got brief write-ups in the Vancouver Business Journal and the Daily Insider web site.

2010 Numbers

In 2010:

Empower Up processed 16,815 donated items dropped from 2,846 WA residents. An additional 4,958 items were collected during the 30 events or off-site pick-ups during the course of the year. The number of donors increased 163% over 2009, and the amount of equipment donated increased by 212%.

Empower Up had the help of 577 volunteers that put in 10,468 hours of service to help us accomplish our mission this past year. Volunteer sign-ups increased 663% over 2009 and total volunteer hours increased by 364%.

Our volunteers helped us to get 6,612 items back into reuse, including 83 free computer systems donated to families in need or to local non-profit organizations. Reuse showed an increase of 238% over 2009.

Empower Up diverted 343,034 lbs of electronic waste from the land fill. Our recycling operation salvaged 228,833 lbs, recovering the gold, ferrous & non-ferrous metals, plastic and glass, an increase of 427% over 2009.

Hurray for us!

Empower Up offers free resources.

Article in the Daily Insider about our free education offerings.

Electronics & Block Foam Collection Event

This Saturday, January 8 - 9a to 1p at Clark College. Story by the Columbian