One of the many activities at Victoria Palms RV Resort is the Tech Center. The Victoria Palms Tech Center has been making quite the impact on its residents and the community lately.
The Tech Center is staffed by over 15 volunteers on weekdays during the Winter Texan season. They provide technical help to residents with their cell phones, tablets, iPads, laptops, and desktop PC’s.
They provide several services as well. They assist with copying, providing PCs for internet access, debug software issues, virus removal, screen repair, hard drive replacements and basically any technical needs, said Larry Riesselman, a volunteer at the Tech Center.
An offshoot of providing these needs to our park residents, said Riesselman, has been their ability to provide equipment to some of the areas in need here in the Rio Grande Valley. Residents, on occasion drop off their old equipment asking them to clear the personal information off and ask how they should dispose of the equipment.
The equipment is cleared of personal information, then reviewed to see if it can be refurbished. If usable, repairs are done, and the software is brought up to date as possible so it can be donated. If unusable, it is taken to the McAllen Recycling Center for disposal.
Some of the places they have donated to are the Family Crisis Center, Valley Haven, and the RGV Kids Camp.
Volunteers at the tech center recently donated four desktop PC’s, one laptop, one Samsung tablet, and an Amazon Kindle to the Padeux Social Club.
Joyce Crose with the Padeux Social Club said their organization works with several shelters in the Rio Grande Valley and was extremely excited to be able to receive this equipment for their use.
Crose added that the Padeux Social Club was formed initially to raise funds to send children to summer camp. As their events got larger and more frequent during the season, they were able to branch out to the shelters. (Padeux is a Louisiana term “affectionately” used to describe people who live in mobile homes.)
“There is no formal club, no rules or dues,” said Crose. “We are a bunch of friends who like to have fun eating, dancing and being entertained while donating money to the children of the RGV.”
When asked what others think of the help they provide, Riesselman said they receive a tremendous number of notes in appreciation about the services they provide, no one keeps copies of them.
Just to give an idea of what they do at the Tech Center, Riesselman shared stats from last season.
They had an over 55 percent increase in visits from the previous year – 664 vs 428. They had 41 volunteer requests for site visits and 43 labels/friendship cards were made.
Their seminars and classes have had great turnouts as well. Their classes run anywhere between six to 16 hours. They have a cybersecurity seminar, iPad/iPhone for beginners, Facebook for beginners, Avery Labels class, and three different class sessions for iPhone/iPad for experienced users.
Riesselman said he finds it very rewarding to volunteer in the Tech Center, being able to help residents by providing access to personal computers, scanners and a printer, or being able to solve or repair an iPad/iPhone, Android phone issues – it gives one a sense of accomplishment.
For example, in just one day, they had 22 residents stop by. Their needs ranged from printing copies of insurance forms, Facebook password help, icons that disappeared off of a laptop, built a flyer for a breakfast event, reinstalled windows on a laptop due to a corrupt update, just to name a few.
“It was a nonstop day for the three people that volunteered,” said Riesselman.
CAPTION:
Pictured, left to right, front row, are Pat Riesselman, Lea Fagan (VP activity director), Chris Silva (VP manager), Joyce Crose, Deby Woller, and Dean Fairbrother. Back row, left to right, are Maree Neuhaus, Larry Schmitt, Ken Ashton, Larry Riesselman, Bill Ellis, Cindy Glass, and Yolanda Walker.
