News Article

Womble Carlyle’s Raleigh and RTP offices have stepped up to outfit a community computer lab with badly needed new equipment.
 

The offices donated 12 Dell OptiPlex computers, which had been in use at the firm, to the White Memorial Presbyterian Church Computer Lab in Raleigh. That lab is used for a number of community programs, including Step-Up, Inc., a non-profit that uses the computers to provide job training to the homeless. The lab also is used to tutor neighborhood students and to host classes for around 40 laid-off job seekers.

Womble Carlyle also purchased new monitors and copies of Microsoft Office for the computers.

Jason Klakoff, a Womble Carlyle Deskside Support Specialist, volunteers at the lab and identified the need for new equipment. The lab’s previous computers were more than 10 years old and do not run the type of software used in most offices today.

“I can’t tell you how much easier it was last night to teach this class with all updated equipment,” Klakoff said after the new computers were installed. “The computers were powerful enough to run the latest software versions of popular programs and they all looked fantastic on the bigger and wider monitors.  After class, I was able to spend some time with one gentleman who had just landed a job requiring a home computer and we went through a lot of information that will really help him be more productive.  I can’t imagine we would’ve been able to do so without these new systems.”

In addition, Womble Carlyle attorney Jackie Terry Hughes is working on bringing women from the Helen Wright Center for Women, a shelter for homeless women, to the lab for computer skills training as well as training in basic interview skills.

Learn more about Community Service at Womble Carlyle