Damn Small Linux DSL for short http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ Has run on most every old PC that I have tried it on, And to get Windows 95 to run on anything less than a 486 with less than 8 MB of RAM you are basically running MS-DOS, and ANY version of Linux with out the GUI will run on most any 386DX with 4 MB of RAM, So I would say that Worst case scenario it could be done, but when most people refer to "Windows 95 Era" computers they are usually referring to at least a 133Mhz with 16 MB of RAM and most of the time referring to a 200Mhz + with 32 MB of RAM, which will run DSL quite nicely. But as you had said looking for a community donation would be a good thing to do, Craig's list is a great resource for this kind of thing, also there are several businesses that would be glad to take a tax break of way more than the PCs are worth to donate their Old used PC's.