This is a fantastic project and I wish you the best of luck with it and hope you have lots of attendees.
I do think there is a business opportunity (or perhaps a charitable one) of refurbishing/reselling older machines by doing just what your seminars are doing, but installing Linux and then selling the machine. Many people could use a machine that costs less than say, $200, but is still very functional for everyday usage.
@Flatworm7591
And yet, I can't read a book that Internet Archive actually owns a copy of.