Ten different schools, nonprofits, and other organizations around Northwest Indiana are celebrating the gift of new computers, new monitors, updated software, and other critical new IT tools after Valparaiso’s BucherTech awarded over $10,000 in goods and services through their annual community grant program.
The program is an initiative started by BucherTech founder Tim Bucher three years ago with the goal of empowering organizations through expert assistance to directly address IT needs, and by doing so, serving the community at large.
“We’re trying to help organizations succeed, because when they succeed they’re helping our community,” Bucher said. “There’s people out there that are hurting, and if we can use our trade to help the organizations that are working with those people – we want to do that.”
The 2021 grant recipients included Family Concern Counseling, Harold “Hal” Kelly Respite House, Hilltop House, Kids Alive International, Lumin Schools, Meals on Wheels of Lake County, St. Paul Catholic School, St. Mary School, the Salvation Army, and Victory Christian Academy.
“It’s exciting being able to help so many different kinds of organizations,” Bucher said. “There’s so many different needs in the community. The fact is that if you want to be healthy it’s not just about physical health, it’s spiritual health, mental health, social health, financial health. It’s neat to see we could help so many different situations.”
Each organization is facing different challenges and has unique IT needs – BucherTech helped them all target specific issues. Family Concern Counseling, for example, is a nonprofit that provides counseling services for all ages and all family sizes, regardless of creed, ethnicity, age, gender or socioeconomic status. Since the pandemic, they’ve seen an increasing need for remote counseling, and asked for BucherTech’s help putting together a solution.
“They wanted to put in what I call a ‘zoom room,’” Bucher said. “It’s a video conferencing room. They’re doing so much counseling, and wanted to be able to be flexible and see their patients through video counseling. So we gave them $750 towards getting that video counseling system together.”
The Salvation Army meanwhile sought to address a longstanding communications issue, which was impacting their wide-ranging tasks, such as addressing hunger, poverty, and addiction.
“Their phone system was problematic,” Bucher said. “They were having issues with it all of the time. We gave them $2,500 towards a new phone system.”
Modern, secure, and stable IT is critical for any organization, and even more so for those working with people in need. Bucher was proud to help these organizations continue fulfilling their missions.
“There are so many organizations that are struggling to get by with old technology,” he said. “We don’t want them living as IT paupers.”
Applications for BucherTech’s 2022 Community Grant Program will open this July. To learn more, visit buchertech.com.
