The website includes online reference and research tools such as:

• encyclopedias
• dictionaries
• magazine articles
• biographies

The CYC module attached here guides new users through the website and helps them explore the benefits for themselves and their children.

• Participate in a high-visibility national Broadband Technology Opportunities
  Program (BTOP) focused on Sustainable Broadband Adoption. This $25mil
  program is one of the largest public investments of its kind.
• Promote their equipment and services offerings to the Connect Your Community Local Community Agencies and their sub-recipient partners.
• The opportunity to sell up to 6,000 – 8,000 refurbished desktop or laptop computers over the course of the next 12 months.

The full RFI is the attached document below.

Attached below is the beginning document our instructors use to customize the list to their particular population and location. We welcome you to do the same.

Some of the instructors provide the list as a printed handout. Some of them email the list. Others have set up websites.

CBAIS had 220 participants representing 23 states (plus the District of Columbia and Taiwan!). Based on the conference evaluations and the wiki, the hottest topics were:

• Sustainability
  • Session Notes – Sustainability through Community Engagement
  • Blog Post – Sustainability Through Community Engagement
• Evaluation
  • Session Notes – Program Evaluation Strategies Panel
  • Session Notes – Data Gathering Tools & Process for Evaluation
  • Session Notes – SBA & PCC Training Programs Evaluation Designs
  • Blog Post – BTOP: User v Subscriber v Adopter
  • Blog Post – Evaluation: What and how are you measuring your impact?
• Sharing Resources (during and post conference)
  • Session Notes – Sharing Training Materials (*Lots of useful links on this page!)
  • Wiki Page – Next Steps
  • Blog Post – Digital Inclusion Resource Sharing

We’re cleaning up the wiki to help make content easier to locate. The wiki will remain live andand we will continue to approve new users.

We are very grateful for all the support we received in putting together the conference and the overwhelming level of comaraderie we observed among the conference participants.

In the spirit of sharing, recordings of our professional development webinars are available on our Vimeo channel. Some of the topics focus on how to teach a particular module (available on this website), while others strengthen professional skills.

Bernett L. Williams, president and CEO of the Akron Urban League, (left) looks at the Urban League’s Connect Your Community class with Bill Callahan, Director of Connect Your Community Project before Williams was honored at a farewell celebration on Wednesday. Williams is leaving to take a new position at Akron Children’s Hospital. (Paul Tople / Akron Beacon Journal)

Although outgoing Urban League President Bernett Williams’ new job is less than a mile away, about 200 people gave her their best wishes on her short journey Wednesday afternoon.

Her staff and board expressed mixed feelings at the farewell reception about losing Williams, who will become the vice president of external relations at Akron Children’s Hospital — a newly created position — next month.

”It will be nearly impossible to fill her shoes with someone of equal talent, experience and her enthusiasm,” said Robert Harrigan, Akron Urban League board chairman.

But government leaders expressed gratitude that Williams, who has worked for the Urban League since 1996, is staying in town.

Mayor Don Plusquellic said Williams’ name topped the list of talented young community leaders he hoped would not be
enticed to advance their careers elsewhere.

”We get to keep Bernett here helping in the same way that she helped people here at the Urban League, and I can’t think — not only as mayor of Akron but as a resident — of anything better than that.”

Williams started her career with the Akron Urban League at the age of 29 as director of programs. The top job opened late in 1996 with the resignation of Stephen Pressley.

Williams wasn’t named executive director until 1998, when she received official approval from her national and local leadership.

”The first reaction from the national Urban League, if you’ll recall, was that she didn’t fit the paradigm for the Urban League leadership,” state Sen. Tom Sawyer, D-Akron, said. ”And this community rose up and said, ‘You can’t put leadership on a resume. You can’t put spirit, you can’t put imagination, you can’t put work ethic onto a resume.’

”And what was originally a rejection of that candidacy was turned around.”

The National Urban League gave Williams the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award for Advancing Racial Equality at its 2008 convention.

Williams might be most remembered for leading a $5 million fundraising campaign to move the headquarters from East Market Street to a new building at 440 Vernon Odom Blvd., adjacent to the new Helen Arnold elementary school.

The complex, which opened in 2007, became the centerpiece of a renaissance for the near-westside Akron neighborhood in Ward 3 that includes new affordable housing, a revitalized Akron Zoo, a sports complex and an expanded branch library.

Marco Sommerville, Ward 3 councilman and council president, expressed his gratitude Wednesday to Williams for making the move.

”You have changed this neighborhood,” Sommerville said. ”You have changed this city. You have made a difference in so many people’s lives.”

Williams also was recognized for forging a partnership with the Connect Your Community Project to expand computer use and access to high-speed Internet services among poor households.

The $2 million federal stimulus grant for the project is the largest in agency history.

The computer training began in September and runs through May 2012. Akron is one of eight Ohio communities to share in the $18.7 million federal grant.

So far, 741 people have registered for a class in Akron, 324 have completed training and received a computer, and 225 say they have Internet access in their homes.

The agency hopes to provide training and support for 3,500 Summit County residents over the next two years.

Computer and Internet access is essential for low-income people, because employers expect job applicants to have e-mail and the ability to send a resume electronically. Interactions with schools and health-care providers increasingly depend on Internet and computer access.

One man with a disability wanted to participate, but couldn’t leave his home, Williams said. Her staff devised a way to help him with Skype, the popular Internet phone service.

”They figured out how to put Skype into his home, so he’s getting the benefit of the CYC program,” Williams said.

The federal grant was especially welcome because of declines in fundraising, largely because of the recession.

Contributions and grants to the Urban League dropped more than 18 percent in 2008 and 2009 from the inflation-adjusted average $2,073,535 for 2000-07.

Williams said she will start her new job Feb. 14. The board will run the agency until her replacement is chosen in a national search. Williams makes about $112,000 a year in base salary.

”The search is under way, so we’re expecting to have the formal replacement named in early May,” she said.

Williams told the crowd at her reception that nobody ever really leaves the Urban League.

”I have received far more from the Akron Urban League than I can ever give,” she said. ”I will always support the Urban League, because once an Urban Leaguer, always an Urban Leaguer.”

ELYRIA — Lorain County Community College is helping close the digital divide through an Internet and computer literacy program called Connect Your Community.

Funded by a two-year $850,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, the program offers free computer training, technical support and high-speed Internet service for low-income Lorain County residents at a number of training sites throughout the county.

Read full article

The lead agency, Focus: HOPE, and two nonprofit partners, Child Care Coordinating Council of Wayne County and Matrix Human Services, are working in three designated Detroit neighborhoods to help low-income households make the broadband Internet connection. Blue Cross is donating laptops to the newly trained community residents on Monday, Dec. 6, 10 a.m. at Focus: HOPE’s computer center, located at 1400 Oakman Blvd. in Detroit.  The neighborhoods are located in the Osborn/northeast and central Woodward/Northend communities.

“Connect Your Community” is a multi-city initiative designed to expand broadband Internet training and spur adoption by more than 5,000 Detroit residents and a total of 20,000 across the country, including Ohio, Kentucky, Florida and Mississippi.

“We are thrilled to participate in the Connect Your Community project in Detroit, and to partner with the various service organizations in their efforts to engage and empower people as they connect to broadband service and improve their computer literacy,” said Bill Toples, BCBSM director of community responsibility.  “This project creates education and employment opportunities in neighborhoods that have been disconnected and disenfranchised until now.  Blue Cross is committed to strengthening communities and improving the economic health of Detroit. We believe it is our part of our corporate responsibility to look for opportunities to support the city and its residents.”

The allocated $3 million in funds for the project are Detroit’s share of an $18.7 million federal award to OneCommunity, made possible by the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program award announced in September 2010 by the U.S Department of Commerce.

“Many of the residents of the neighborhoods around our campus cannot access the wealth of resources on the internet because they don’t have computers or an affordable internet connection,” said William F. Jones, Jr., CEO of Focus: HOPE.  “We are extremely grateful to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for stepping forward with a donation of laptop computers which will be distributed to graduates of our computer training classes. The laptops are a major step forward in our effort to get our community connected to resources that most of us take for granted.”

To date, more than 150 students have completed the Detroit – Computer Fundamentals program.  One student describes her experience as one that “restores my pride and belief, knowing there are jewels like this in my neighborhood.”

Other partners and supporters of the effort include the Community Telecommunications Network, Henry Ford Health System, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Wayne State University.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, a nonprofit organization, provides and administers health benefits to nearly 4.5 million members residing in Michigan in addition to members of Michigan-headquartered groups who reside outside the state. BCBSM also offers dental, vision and hearing plans. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network are nonprofit corporations and independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. For more company information, visit bcbsm.com.

Focus: HOPE is a nationally recognized civil and human rights organization founded in 1968 after the 1967 Detroit riots. Throughout the years, Focus: HOPE developed numerous programs in its efforts to overcome racism, poverty and injustice. It offers a food program, which assists 42,000 seniors, mothers and children each month; career training programs in machining, engineering, information technology, health care, and weatherization; a child care center, and extensive community development programs through its new HOPE Village Initiative. Through Focus: HOPE, thousands of individuals – especially women and ethnic minorities – have become financially independent. www.focushope.edu.