{"id":222155,"date":"2022-01-11T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T14:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.livabl.com\/articles\/?p=222155"},"modified":"2022-01-11T09:08:15","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T14:08:15","slug":"real-estate-raise-student-laptops-support-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.livabl.com\/articles\/news\/real-estate-raise-student-laptops-support-learning","title":{"rendered":"How a real estate broker raised $31,000 for student laptops"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Ara<\/a>Photo courtesy\u00a0Ara Mamourian<\/em><\/p>\n

With some COVID-19 restrictions now back in place, school students across Ontario once again found themselves learning remotely last week. For some families, this meant trying to source computers and devices so that their school-aged children could participate in their online education.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the work of a Toronto real estate broker and donations from the community, hundreds of students will be able to connect to the classroom.<\/p>\n\n

Ara Mamourian, broker and managing partner of RE\/MAX Hallmark\u2019s The Spring Team<\/a> in Riverside, has helped to raise $31,000 towards purchasing laptops for schools in Toronto.<\/p>\n

Mamourian first started his laptop initiative back in 2020 during the onset of the pandemic, surfing online to source, buy and donate laptops to those who needed them. A few days ago, as the province moved schools back to virtual learning, Mamourian was able to gather $26,000 in 24 hours for the initiative, an amount that has now grown to $31,000.<\/p>\n

Livabl<\/em> caught up with Mamourian to learn more about how the laptop donations were started and what plans he has next.<\/p>\n

This is an edited transcript of that interview.<\/em><\/p>\n

How did this initiative start? What sparked the conversation that led to this series of donations?<\/h3>\n

Last April, a client of mine who’s heavily involved as a parent at Nelson Mandela Park Public School told me that kids don’t have access to a device to participate in online learning. It was the first lockdown, so I just started to scour Facebook marketplace and buy laptops from people, then started giving them to people that needed them. A pretty simple, self-funded initiative. Then I found a wholesaler who sold me units at cost, so I bought a bunch and distributed them.<\/p>\n

I did that to the tune of about 10 units per month for a year to various people, not just the school. Then, fast forward to about five days ago. Rachel, my client, reached out to me again letting me know that there were still 50 to 60 outstanding device requests from kids. Now, we’re almost a week into this round of online learning, so they’ve already missed out. So I put it on my IG story, \u201cCan anyone help me raise $6K so I can get 60 Chromebooks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, it wasn’t even 6:30am yet, and one of my people gave me the full $6,000! So I put it out there again, “We got $6K and it’s not even 7am, can we do more?” and BOOM! Requests to donate came flooding. Fast forward 24 hours and I was at $26,000. Then I got another $5,000 so we’re sitting at $31,000 right now.<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Ara Mamourian (@aramammo)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n