Intel Corporation and the Northwest Regional Education Service District founded StRUT in 1995. StRUT quickly grew from a handful of schools to over 130 schools and Education Service Districts participating. In 2000-01, StRUT moved to a 20,0000 square foot warehouse off of Marine Drive in Portland, Oregon. At that time, the general premise of the StRUT program was...

Students Recycling Used Technology, StRUT, is a program incorporated into schools where students take donated computers and computer components and upgrade them for the use in schools. Students involved in StRUT evaluate, repair and refurbish donated computers and in turn distribute those computers free to local schools. StRUT students gain valuable computer knowledge and hands on computer skills.

In 2003, as a result of budgetary shortfalls, StRUT was forced to close its doors, leaving 130 schools in Oregon without the much needed hardware to support their technology programs.

Oregon StRUT: 2003 to present

During the same year that the Portland-based Oregon StRUT program suddenly closed its doors, Columbia Gorge Education Service District, and their component school districts, partnering with Oregon Intel, gave this invaluable program a new life in The Dalles, Oregon. Since moving the program to The Dalles, StRUT has distributed over 10,000 computers to Oregon schools, and has diverted over 900,000 TONS of E-Waste from entering Oregon landfills. StRUT maintains a close relationship with Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and has been the recipient of two of their capacity building grants.

Increasing hands-on learning opportunities for students....

Since May of last year, the Oregon StRUT program has piloted several new technology education initiatives geared towards increasing Science Technology Engineering & Math (STEM), as a way to expand hands-on learning opportunities for students. Students from all parts of Oregon (250 since October!) have visited the StRUT facility in The Dalles, Oregon, and have learned how to program robots, create video games, and explore the various hardware components inside a computer. After a StRUT field trip concludes, we ask students to complete a short survey so that we can gauge the impact of our new STEM initiatives. Here's what a student from Centennial Middle School had to say when asked what we could do to improve student field trips:

"NOTHING!! I had a lot of fun and thought it was better than last year because we got more time to do extra training things and their was more instruction in the hardware room, and everybody was super duper nice!!!" Courtney, Centennial Middle School

Other StRUT Program(s):

Arizona StRUT

Silicon Valley StRUT