Juvenile facility loooking for gaming help

CarolinaBBQ

My father works for a juvenile detention center in Tennessee. Apparently, they are trying to find a charity or group that can help them find 10 ps2 systems for the kids. I have been told that they can be used or refurbished.

I was wondering if anyone knew of a group that might be interested in helping out. I told him to contact Child's Play, but I'm not sure if they would be set up to work with this population or accept used equipment.

Any suggestions about where to get started or where a chunk of working ps2s might be located?

If anyone's interested, let me know and I can pass on the contact information to you.

Thanks for your help.

Kyougu

Check out gamestops and local video stores. Take paperwork and explain to them what you need, maybe some can volunteer a system?

amateurhour

he needs to check out local businesses, tell them about what his charity is, and get them to each donate one system. He's tax exempt, so just get gamestop to hold onto ten or so, and see if they'll even donate one, or some games, or even a controller or something. Don't just look for one group to do all the work. Get a lot of different local businesses involved, and set aside a couple hundred bucks to print up some thank you stickers for their sponsorship, and run a small thank you ad in the local paper. It's the easiest way to actually get people to donate: Get a bunch of small groups to provide one big gift through microtransactions.

Thanatos

You should get in touch with childsplaycharity@penny-arcade.com.

Child's Play, due to the nature of the people they're generally giving stuff to, is unable to accept used stuff. This might be something good to do with it. I don't know if it'd be feasible or not, but it's certainly worth e-mailing them.

CarolinaBBQ

Thanks for the advice.

I'll see what my Dad finds out from his email to Child's Play and suggest that he call up the local gamestop.
I'd love to be able to help out more with this for him but we're in different states and I'm not sure how effective I'll be at recruiting either in my area or on the phone to Tennessee. (Plus, would I even legally be able to solicit for a state organization without authorization? Across state lines no less. Good intentions and all.)

I'll try helping him get a form letter written up for some nearby business and maybe a few church's. Might help for them to get that before he starts cold-calling people.

Oh well, I'll try to keep up with what he sends to Child's Play and suggest about maybe trying Craig's List or something. He's in a poor rural area in eastern Tenn., so lots of travel back and forth between businesses may be a little more than my dad can handle.

AtomBomb

I've found that you can have pretty decent luck with this type of thing if you make a "sponsorship wall" or something like that. Just something simple in the detention center, preferably where visitors would see it, that says "Video game systems kindly provided by:", and then you put the donators names and logos up. Goodwill advertising and all that.