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East Palo Alto Digital Village
Community Interact!
Project Launch Event
“Building…
Improving…
Transforming… for the Common Good!”
By Nadine Watson
Community Interact! Project Coordinator
The East Palo Alto Digital Village (EPADV) invites residents to attend a Launch
Celebration for Community Interact! (CI), which will be held Thursday, March
10th, 2005, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., at East Palo Alto City Hall Council Chambers &
Community Room, located at 2415 University Avenue, on the first floor. This
event will celebrate the selection of
20 community nonprofit and faith-based
organizations that will receive a Community Interact! grant of subsidized
broadband wireless Internet access, a complimentary computer system, and
assistance using online connectivity tools.
The advent of the Community Interact! project was announced
in
an EPA.net article published last May. The article provided
a historical overview of EPADV-led technology infrastructure-building
successes achieved in East Palo Alto through a multi-year
(2000-2003) $5 million grant received from Hewlett-Packard
Company. It also described the significance of Community Interact!
as a major initiative in EPADV’s current sustainability phase.
Since May, substantial progress has been made toward implementing Community
Interact! Thursday’s launch, which introduces a pilot group of 20 grantees,
celebrates a major milestone in the project’s efforts to take the community to
the next level of information technology usage.
CI grantee organization representatives are excited about the opportunity to
connect to the “Information Super-Highway.” They also look forward to being able
to collaborate more with other nonprofit sector leaders for the Common Good.
One such representative is Arquilla Conner, President and Founder of Men of
Purpose. This nonprofit provides men of all races and cultures, who are
incarcerated, with the support and counsel needed to revive, restore and sustain
their lives, enabling them to become positive members of society. Ms. Conner had
this to say. “Some of our ongoing challenges have been recording and tracking
the progress of our clients remotely, and having to rely on sending
correspondence via SNAIL mail. Becoming a recipient of this grant will help
expedite processes for the programs we provide. Wireless connectivity will help
Men of Purpose connect with prison administrators, staff and families within the
community. I see this as an excellent way to open up lines of communication with
all organizations in the community to better serve the community.”
Raven 21, a new Internet Service Provider
(ISP), is creating wireless resources tailored to meet the needs
of East of Bayshore clients. Mark Rogowsky, founder of Raven
21’s parent company, Community Wireless, holds primary
responsibility for building the Community Interact! project’s
wireless network.
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Circles indicate the Internet access provided by each wireless transmitter.
The circles overlap to ensure Internet access to all 20 sites.
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Once connectivity has been established
throughout East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, Mark predicts
“…that nearly every home, business, park, and street corner will
be part of a wireless “hot spot” where you can get onto the
Internet at high speeds. Your communities will go from being
“underserved” to having enviable state-of-the-art service. [We]
will provide an alternative to cable and DSL that can offer the
best possible service at the lowest possible prices.”
In addition, CI organizations will receive
technical support services from youth who have been trained by
Opportunities Industrialization Center West (OICW) through a
pilot companion project, Youth Interact! To date, five youth
have been trained to
work as interns supporting Community Interact! nonprofit and
faith-based organizations grantees. The interns will receive
stipends funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
through One East Palo Alto's Neighborhood Improvement Initiative
portfolio and the project's Cable Co-op and Hewlett-Packard
grants. Their field assignments will be supervised by CI’s
Project Coordinator and Technical Support Consultant.
About Community Interact! – An East Palo Alto Digital Village Signature Project
Community Interact: Net-Connected Communication for the Common Good (Community
Interact!) is a signature project of East Palo Alto Digital Village that focuses
on nonprofits and faith-based organizations. Today, more nonprofit organizations
use computers and the Internet to help accomplish their missions. For many here
in East Palo Alto, however, networked computers and high speed Internet access
are still not the norm. These additional investments in critical technology are
beyond the means of a majority of East Palo Alto-based nonprofits and
faith-based organizations due to funding cutbacks, limited resources, and
insufficient technical capability.
Community Interact! is designed to augment and sustain technology access and
infrastructure-building in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park/Belle Haven, an
area also referred to as East of Bayshore. Established in December 2003, this
project is generously sponsored by keystone funding from the Cable Co-op Legacy
Grant Program and a substantial cash and equipment grant from Hewlett-Packard
Company (HP).
Community Interact! will serve 70% of East of Bayshore nonprofits and
faith-based organizations. These organizations will receive fully subsidized
broadband wireless Internet connectivity and assistance using online
connectivity tools. Through these tools, organizations will be able to utilize
various Internet-enabled resources to provide broader outreach to prospective
clients, increase information dissemination to established clientele, gain
greater access to informational resource documents, and realize more effective
information-sharing with other social service agencies located throughout the
target area and in surrounding communities. In addition, based on need, some
selected organizations will also receive a complimentary computer system.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was prepared in consultation with the Community
Interact! Core Team. Download flyer for event.
You will need
Adobe Reader to open flyer.
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This project is fiscally sponsored by:
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One East
Palo Alto
Neighborhood Improvement Initiative | |
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