Week of 2/28/00

Making a Difference - Meet the Computer Lady

You don't really need a computer to teach kids the value of money, but there's a world of things they can learn when they have access to the Net. In our new money series, we'll find out how one New York woman is making a difference by giving kids a cyberworld they never knew existed.

"Thank you all for coming this morning. I'm the executive director of a non-profit called Computers for Youth. And our mission is to place computers and Internet access into the homes of families who might otherwise not be able to afford it." Elisabeth Stock could be working as an engineer at a high-tech firm, or an aerospace giant — after all, her degree is from MIT.

But where she really wants to be is at the heart of New York's inner city schools, giving the kids a leg up on their future.

"Right now, as you see, we're placing computers in the 6th grader's homes, we've already done the 8th graders and the 7th graders. By the time these students go for a job, they're gonna need to be able to know how a computer works, to know how to access information through the computer."

The computers themselves are donated by larger corporations. They're refurbished and tied to an Internet provider that also donates a portion of ITS service. And the training? That's donated too, by dozens of teachers like these.

"I'm teaching 7th grade students, and it's a pleasure to have some of my students mention the stock market for example,” explains teacher Marina Bernard, “And trying to understand how that relates to perhaps, political issues,"

As teacher Joshua Zoia describes it, "It's amazing to see how much they've developed, because in the beginning they couldn't even type their name on the computer. One student, he had a very bad problem with writing. He got his computer thirty days ago; he handed in to me a ten page essay the other day, when usually he was handing in a couple of sentences."

"It really is making a profound difference in what's happening in the household, and how the students are doing in their schoolwork and how they perceive school. And that's very meaningful to me," Stock says.

Computers for Youth has only been in operation about a year now. Stock says she has hopes of expanding soon to other schools throughout New York, then expanding even further throughout the country. For more information on this program, how to donate computers, or how to start a project like this one, call Computers for Youth at 212-253-7570, or check out the group's Web site at cfy.org.