At the heart of "Take IT Home NY" and what makes CFY unique is what they call their “community-centric and comprehensive” approach. Computers for Youth provides home access not to individual children spread randomly across the city, but to the entire student body of selected middle schools in which at least 85% of the students are eligible for free lunch. The program is comprehensive in that, in addition to hardware and software, CFY provides training for students and parents, technical support, initial Internet access, email accounts, and tailored web content for all families that receive computers.

To receive a computer, each student and a parent must attend a four-hour Saturday training session at which they learn basic computer skills. Approximately 90% of students in each school participate. CFY Executive Director, Elisabeth Stock, notes that "school administrators and teachers are usually very surprised by this level of turn out,” since partner schools usually struggle to increase parent participation. Parents' attendance at the training session is often the first contact they have with the school other than enrolling their children. Teachers and administrators capitalize on the opportunity to meet with parents.

Other Pieces of the Pie
In addition to “Take IT Home NY,” CFY also has several additional programs that support their effort to bring computers and connectivity to low-income and minority students. In the “School to Work” Computer Refurbishing, CFY hires around 45 underserved students per year to prepare donated computers for redistribution by wiping the hard drives clean. They also load new operating systems and other software applications. The Help Desk program employs about five students per year to provide technical assistance to the families once they get their computers home.

One particularly important CFY feature ¯focusing on helping developing capacity within the community around computer use ¯ is the "Tech Helpers" program. Several students in each of the partner schools are trained to provide technical support to families that bring computers to school for repair. Ms. Stock refers to these Tech Helpers as reducing the families’ “degree of separation from a nerd.” CFY wanted to offer more informal channels to provide technical assistance to families, many of whom are not likely to have friends, neighbors or relatives with technical expertise to answer computer-related questions. By training students in each school to provide technical assistance, the Tech Helpers program reduces the degrees by which families are separated from a "nerd" who can help them solve their computer problem. There are currently 13 Tech Helpers (8 boys, 5 girls) operating in the partner schools. They received two weeks of training during the summer on DOS, basic imaging, motherboard operations, troubleshooting, and career development as well as collaboration and communication skills.

CFY also has developed a website that provides content geared toward the community it serves ¯ first time users of computers and the Internet ¯ called Community Corner (www.communitycorner.org). The site is developed and maintained by low-income and minority interns chosen specifically to design graphics and content that reflect the community. The home page looks like a typical New York neighborhood, giving users unfamiliar with the Internet a comfortable place to start their experience. The content also is organized to direct people to sites likely to be most helpful. “Ten best” lists help direct users to quality, reliable content.

Impact
Computers for Youth conducts research on a continual basis to measure the impact their programs have on students, families, schools, and communities. So far the results have been quite positive. As the father of one student notes, " The computer increases the child's horizon . . . It gives them the advantage of accessing knowledge." CFY helps provide the advantage students are least likely to have by working to bridge the most persistent aspect of the digital divide — home access. Three-quarters of families involved in the program maintain home Internet access either through the prepaid system or another ISP of their choice. This percentage is significant for a few reasons. First, it is evidence that the technology is actually being adopted, and that the families value the computer and access enough to continue to pay for the service on their own. Second, the statistic also reveals that CFY is having an equalizing effect on low-income and minority children when compared with national statistics on Internet usage. Current national statistics from the Department of Commerce reveal that home Internet access for children from high-income families is 82.5%, while access among low-income families is 21.4%. Similarly for race, only about 30% of Black and Hispanic children have home access to the Internet compared to approximately 70% of White and Asian American children.

CFY helps build a sense of community around the technology. A teacher in East Harlem commented, "The CFY program has added a lot to the sense of community: the excitement, the 'did you see,' the sense of connectedness." Students know all their friends are online. Teachers and administrators know all their students have a computer and access to the Internet. They know exactly what software students have because teachers themselves receive the same system, which makes it possible for teachers to assign computer- and Internet-based homework assignments.

On an individual level, Computers for Youth affects the lives of the students and families they serve. CFY research reveals that 75% of students report their "computer has helped them do better in school, like school more, and/or to relate better to their teachers." Students also report "being more curious about the world and more confident about themselves." Teachers observe improvements in research and writing skills, and motivation to complete homework has increased. Another teacher in East Harlem noted, "Students contact me daily with homework or project questions and websites. I also get an opportunity to read their first draft and comment before class." Teachers report the amount and quality of contact with parents has increased.

Future
Computers for Youth has several goals for the future. The first is to continue expanding its operation as it has every year since its inception, aiming to reach 10,000 computers per year by the end of the 5th year. Second is to maintain low-cost operations. Through the financial support they receive from corporations like AT&T and Citigroup, and the large computer donations they receive from Societe Generale and Goldman Sachs, CFY has managed to develop a low-cost model. They currently spend less than $850 per family, a figure that decreases as they continue to expand. Finally, as a long-term goal, CFY hopes to replicate its model in other cities across the U.S.