Microsoft Donates $12,000 Worth of Tech Equipment to Day Worker Center

Christmas in May?

That's what it felt like Friday afternoon at the when former Palo Alto Mayor and Microsoft Silicon Valley's current Director of Corporate Citizenship and Philanthropy Sid Espinosa dropped off $12,000 worth of technology equipment.

"It's a blessing for us to do this. It'll have a huge impact in the community," he said. "We have for the last few years focused on work-force development programs and people during the recession who are struggling sometimes don't have the tools."

The arrival of the six Lenovo PC laptops, six copies of Microsoft Office Pro and Windows 7 Ultimate, color laser printer, two copies of Rosetta Stone English, 10 headsets with microphones and XBox with Kinect, will be part of the newly established Microsoft Computer Lab at the center.

This gift from the corporate giant's Silicon Valley headquarter—its largest office outside of Washington—were very welcomed by the center's Executive Director Maria Marroquin, especially now that the city of Mountain View has granted it permission to remain open until 9 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

"This is really meaningful for the Day Worker Center because it allows us to start a partnership with Microsoft and improve our services of providing more training for the day workers," she said.

Marroquin added that the center's objective is to help workers get employment so that usually, if a computer training class took place during the daytime and an employer arrived soliciting a work, that worker would leave the class. Now they can dedicate the evening hours specifically for computer and job training.

Jose Arce, comes all the way from San Jose, to use the center's computer lab. However, he's a bit more advance then the rest so he's actually learning how to maintain the PCs and clean them of viruses. He hopes to continue now use these skills to get a certification in information techonology.

"The center has allowed me to take classes to help repair the computers here," said the two-year client of the center. And as far as work development, Arce now finds himself getting small jobs from other clients in the center who need help. "I have a good number of people who bring their laptops to me here to repair them."

The center currently offers basic computer training classes and more advance students have learned to blog. .

Nearly 2,000 employees from Microsoft's Silicon Valley in Mountain View campus for local organizations like Second Harvest Food Bank, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Computer History Museum.