Lorraine Kerwood

When her massage practice was ended by an injury in 1995, Lorraine Kerwood discovered computers as a student at LCC. And even while she finished a UO degree and began a new career as a social worker, she also got into buying old Macintosh computers from thrift stores. "I found information on the internet, on how to rebuild them," she explains. "I started giving them away." In 1999, Kerwood founded MacRenewal, a non-profit devoted to salvaging old Macs and donating them to kids in foster care, migrant-worker families, and other worthy recipients. "In five years we've given away 3000 computers," says Kerwood, who quit her social-work job two years ago to dedicate all her energies to the agency, now called the Computer Reuse and Recycling Center (CRRC). CRRC relies on volunteer labor to rebuild computers and dismantle unusable components for recycling. "We find markets for every piece," Kerwood notes. "Recycling pays our rent." Volunteers who put in 30 hours earn themselves a refurbished computer. Flanked by volunteers in the photo, Kerwood cradles Luna, the CRRC mascot. Learn more at lanecrrc.org.