alphanumeric makes PC repair seem more difficult then it is.
If you can learn how to change your own oil, you can probably get a good grasp on PC hardware.
Sure, some might say, "but nobody makes courses on how to change your own oil". Of course, nobody makes a huge deal out of it, either. And even though it's pretty easy there are businesses designed to do just that for you. Not everybody can be bothered to learn to change their oil, and even if they know how, they might have bought a new car that is unfamiliar. the same thing applies to PCs and PC repair; not everybody can be bothered to learn much about their PCs, and even if they do they might need help with a new OS or hardware architecture. This doesn't make the process complicated- you don't need to understand a whole lot about electricity aside from a few basics, and you won't need to know details about the hardware such as the various logic gates- you just need to know some high level stuff- that's how the PC was designed; you shouldn't need to have a degree to replace a video card, and you certainly don't; it was designed to be relatively simple.
I think if you were to join this charity you may NOT get the experience you're looking for, second hand PC's that are to be "renovated" will simply have their hard-disks zeroed/erased and a new copy of the O/S installed. Once the previous owners info and files are erased the computer won't need any components removed or replaced so you won't get to see anything at all really. You'd be lucky to see the case having to be removed!!
This is not necessarily true. a good amount of rationing is done with memory- for example, maybe if you get two PCs brought in, one that only has 64MB and another with a GB in 2 sticks, they might take out the 64MB and give both computers 512.
