Can you believe that I can't give away an iPad?

[TatteredOwl]

We are in the fortunate position of having a household of many tech items. We have iPads for all, laptops, switches, the lot. As we are so lucky, my son offered to give his spare iPad away ( I know a spare sounds ludicrous, in reality he has a new one and this one is approximately 3 years old)

It works perfectly. It's immaculate. It's in a case. I'd prefer it to go to a family who don't have one - so I didn't put it on my local community site as I know all the cheeky fuckers would pounce.

So I messaged my local community charity guy. Asking if he knew any families. He's too busy and couldn't take it right now - absolutely fair enough. It's not food to the elderly which is what he's concentrating on

Offered it to my youngest's secondary school - asked if they knew of a family who might need it for the homework apps etc. They said they'd think on it but never came back to me.

I'm not near a refuge. I'm not near a hospital and couldn't go anyway right now of course

So ..... any ideas?

(CF) you could give it to my family. I've got a school laptop, I bought Dd a laptop for her school work, Ds2 said he didn't need one but now he can't go to college he has asked me to buy a cheap laptop. Only problem is we are self isolating. Have you not got a local community centre who would benefit from it?

No community centre really. Not that I know of anyway! We live in a market town in the south east.

All I want is for it to go to someone who doesn't have one and would like one. Seems so easy 😂

Give it to the charity shop and that way you know it's going to a cause.

Local college?

Red cross may know a refugee family? I do volunteer teaching with some refugge children who the red cross supports.

My dd has college work to do at home but we dont have a laptop so its going to be impossible as I am sure it will be for many families. Someone must need it from you.

Could offer it to the childrens ward at your local hospital? Ours is always happy to take toys and computer games

I don't want to visit a hospital right now plus the nearest one is 25 miles away. I'm not that altruistic!

Could do the charity shop but they don't take electronics do they?

No Red Cross near me

I'll just think about it further. Inspiration will strike I'm sure! I'd like a child to have it who wouldn't necessarily be able to have one

Your local social Work (children and justice or family placement) might take it for one of their young people.

It's a shame it's so difficult to give something away that so many people should want to bite your hand off for.

One of the hospitals was asking for them for people to FaceTime family from the wards when in isolation. Not sure if it was a scam though. You could ask.

Your nearest children's centre should be able to help identify a family in need

My Mum would love it... here has just packed in and she has to s.i. for 12 weeks due to being high risk

Have you got a special school near you? We are all staying open because our kids have EHCPs but staffing is tight. We need holding activities and iPads are great because of the educational apps we can put on for the kids.

Could I suggest that you look for your local group for autistic children (or parents of autistic children) and offer it there? I would imagine they'd bite your hand off Many autistic children use communication apps on the iPad to 'talk' either with words or with graphics.

(If you kept hold of it until schools are back to normal, you could look for a special needs or autism specific school and see if they know of a parent/child who would appreciate it.)

haha, crossed post with @chilledteacher who had the same idea but is keen even during the current crisis

Different approach: could you sell it locally, to someone who doesn't need it quite as much as you'd like, and give the money to a food bank or other charity?

My elderly neighbour was telling me she would love an iPad right now so that she could contact her family and Skype her grandchildren. She felt so lonely Do you have an elderly neighbours who might like to do similar?

I know it sounds a bit crazy with so many people in need of one. Are you fortunate to be in a well off area? Maybe this is why its harder to get rid of. Also if it doesn't have the latest apple operating system, can be hard to use for newer apps and so on. Maybe see if anyone is looking on freecycle? However as most people are in isolation now, people will be reluctant to go out to pick up an ipad. Also some charities need to be very careful about which electronic goods they take. But a lovely idea to give away.

Please please contact the charity Harmless - they support those in crisis with thoughts of self harm & suicide.

They have posted numerous times this week about desperately needing ipads to be able to continue to support people x

OP - Harmless are on FB if you wanted to have a look at their charitable work x

A residential home for elderly so they can face time family

Are you on Nextdoor.com ? There’s people on mine asking if anyone can repair laptops/ iPads for school work. There may be similar near you.

I would get back to your local school. Maybe contact your own child’s previous teacher.
Once distance learning starts, families will have multiple children needing to link up for video calls.
An iPad is easy to use and well able to cope.
DD uses hers and hasn’t had a single problem. Better than classmates with full computers.

We’re in Italy, by the way. What started as a Carnival break has just become a month of no school.

If you have a local library I'm sure they would take it, they usually do playgroups in the day and singalongs (near me anyway) and a baby nursery rhyme app would be so useful to them
Obviously they're not going to be using it any time soon so maybe keep hold of it until the county is in a better situation and then go in and enquire

Keep safe everyone xx

Your local church might be aware of older, single people with no technology available to them. Try the vicar?

Your local special needs school? Children with autism (and I assume other conditions too) can really benefit from them. If that fails feel free to donate to me!