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The 2000 Jerry Awards
The award categories of the 2000 Jerry Awards for community service projects and winning groups are:
Big Bear Computer Club
(http://www.bigbearcc.org)
Volunteer teaching program gives seniors new skills and links them to a
sense of community with the user group and the broader world.
This project supports computer training for the area's senior citizen
community in partnership with the Senior Center of Big Bear Valley. A
volunteer teaching program started in the Spring, 2000 has grown from a few
attendees to over 100 individuals and continues to expand. All equipment
used for classes are donated by the computer club including loaner systems
for seniors unable to purchase personal computers at this time.
Through the request of the County Agency for Aging and Adult Services, it
will now reach people throughout San Bernadino County.
As a result, the club has quadrupled its membership as seniors now seek
additional information on computers. This has now resulted in the group
moving to a new facility in order to accommodate the growing membership.
Amador Computer User Group
(http://www.goldrush.com/~acug/communityserv.html)
California State Library system asks ACUG for assistance. ACUG
Scholarship Fund to provide educational opportunities and exposure to
computer technology for students in rural communities in California’s
Sierra Nevada mountains.
The Amador Computer Users Group continues to look for ways to help the
community develop interesting and useful ways to the use the computer.
Several years ago they began the Amador County Library Project. This
project was so successful that at the request of the Amador County Library
they were asked to assist with development plans by the CA State Library in
fostering development of library services throughout rural CA. By bringing
their experiences from their local ongoing library project to a new forum,
their assistance will help to strengthen rural libraries throughout
northern California.
They received a Jerry Award for community service from the APCUG in
February of 1999 that was awarded during the Fall 1998 Comdex APCUG
conference. In deliberating how best to use this money, the ACUG Board
decided that students in their mostly rural community, did not have the
educational opportunities and exposure to computer technology that larger
metropolitan area schools offered, and that the prize money should go
toward improving this situation.
Toward this end the prize money was set aside to found the ACUG Scholarship
Fund to encourage local students to attend college or technical school to
study in computer-related fields. ACUG's ultimate goal is to provide the
opportunity for young people in our community to have access to a technical
education, resulting in opportunities for high-income employment.
This group also has a Hospice of Amador Project which involved setting up
and maintaining a computer network for the Hospice as well as checking out
several donated laptops and installing required software on them. They
have also been approached by the Hospice to build a Web site for the
organization to aid in getting out information on their services and
benefits to terminal patients and their families.
Danbury Area Computer Society
Computer refurbishing project benefits local non-profit
organizations.
As a result of receiving a donation of three hundred computers from
Danbury Hospital, DACs began a refurbishing project that went beyond the
technical consulting and training they have been providing for qualifying
public and non-profit organizations over the past ten years. A committee
of fifty members was created to help refurbish these computers for donation
to local non-profit organizations. In less than one year one hundred and
sixty systems have already been donated to local non-profits. Through the
activation of member energy, they plan to continue their refurbishing
project indefinitely.
Twin Lakes Computer Users Group
(www.tlcug.org)
Mentoring program triples User Group membership.
To add to their good works Twin Lakes Computer Users Group has established
a mentoring program in which a new novice computer user works with a mentor
when they need to call upon expertise. Currently seventeen mentors are
helping eighty novices. The program’s success is responsible for their
membership expanding from one hundred to over three hundred members.
Ongoing projects include providing computer information support for
community users of the Mountain Home Public Library computers on a daily
basis and holding computer classes in the Mountain Home Public Library.
They also refurbish computers for donation to various charitable
organizations in the community.
Columbia Baltimore Users Group
(http://www.millkern.com/cbug/)
Phoenix Project has recycled over three thousand computers for Maryland
School children and the needy. Founder and Director of the Project, Art
Silverglate is commended for his leadership and his commitment to the
community.
This project was designed to be a small scale recycling operation but
has exceeded all expectations. What began as a volunteer group of four or
five weekly volunteers now averages forty volunteers each Saturday and each
week between fifty and sixty computers are readied for distribution.
The Phoenix Project links many partners including the National Cristina
Foundation (http://www.cristina.org) and the Maryland State Department of
Education. Alliances with Baltimore Community College, Howard Community
College, Towson University and University of Maryland at Baltimore County
have provided additional volunteers for Project Phoenix and training and
experience for the students as they repair computers for the needy.
The latest achievement is that the Phoenix Project is now going into
schools, wiring classrooms and hooking up students to the Internet. This
provides free manpower to the schools, and new learning experiences for the
volunteers.
Gold Coast Macintosh User Group
(http://www.gcmac.org)
Evangelists in the aisles of local retailers help build relationship
between user group and the community. (http://www.gcmac.org/html/movie.html)
Gold Coast Macintosh User Group is dedicated to supporting their
community, as well as the efforts of the International User Group
community. They have a project list of ongoing projects that is added to
continuously.
They are helping members of their local retail community to raise awareness
about effective use of computers. Other projects educational projects
include participation in an international radio show, presentation of
Children's learning days which are promoted through community newspapers
and the retailers they have built a relationship with, and at least two
seminars a year which are open to the public. This User Group has added a
Spanish language column to their newsletter and participates on a Spanish
language television show to support their large Latin community. At the
same time, they are assisting a number of groups in need including the
Shriner’s Children’s Hospital with donations of refurbished computers.
They have stated they will use the award they received to expand their
community outreach.
Greater Cleveland PC User Group
(http://www.capinc.org/)
Computers Assisting People (CAP) brings hands-on technology to hundreds
of inner city children and adults. Founder and Director of the Project, Dan
Hanson is commended for his leadership and his commitment to the
community.
Over the last few years the CAP program has refurbished about one
thousand computers and donated them to schools, senior centers, shelters
and other non-profits in the Cleveland area.
In 2000 they devised a system to maximize their resources through
networking. They identified a number of inner city church and community
centers where the congregations and/or leadership were willing to play an
active role in setting up the lab and also provide ongoing support.
Volunteers were trained to facilitate setting up PCs in a peer-to-peer
network to share printers, CD-ROMs and other more rare devices. By the
third quarter of the year they had already set up about a dozen
training/practice networks in inner city churches and community centers.
Interactive Computer Owners Network, Inc.
ICON partners with St. John's Health Systems to train over 800 seniors
in basic computer skills.
A number of dedicated ICON volunteers have participated in St. John's
Hospital Senior Program since January 1998, training seniors in basic
computer skills and opening up a whole new world for them. In speaking
about the seniors who have been trained, Valerie Griffin a Coordinator of
Older Adult Services at St. John's Health Systems stated, "It has been very
rewarding to watch these people go on to get jobs, trade stocks and bonds
over the Internet and become valuable volunteers within our health
system."
In October of 1998 ICON began offering these same type of free classes at
The South Side Senior Center where the group also furnished some of the
computers being used. Coleen Cornelison of the South Side Senior Center
said, "The access to a computer with on-line services affords them the
opportunity to e-mail family and friends with no cost to them." There are
so many seniors waiting to attend these basic classes that there are
waiting lists at both facilities.
Kentucky Indiana Personal Computer Users Group
(http://www.kipcug.org)
KIPCUG partners with Wayside Christian Mission to provide refurbished
computers to underprivileged families.
KIPCUG decided to partner with Wayside, an organization that makes a
difference in the Louisville community by daily providing more than one
thousand meals and providing shelter for approximately three hundred
adults. Their transition program services over 100 families with children.
The partnership with Wayside seeks to accomplish two goals. First, to
provide operating computers for Wayside and other select Louisville and
southern Indiana charities. Second, to provide computers for graduates of
Wayside's computer education program to take home for FREE. (See page 6 -
President's Message - KIPCUG's I/O Magazine - online at
http://www.kipcug.org/io/io0007.pdf)
In five months KIPCUG had collected over two hundred and fifty computers.
This is twice their expected total for the entire year.
Akron Canton PC Users Group
(http://www.acpcug.org)
The Akron Canton PC Users Group has been promoting computer literacy in
northeastern Ohio since 1983.
In their efforts to support the community the Akron Canton PC Users
Group found that the elderly and others with low income were missing out on
the benefits of technology and especially personal computers. This
prompted them to develop a three-pronged outreach program of re-cycling,
teaching free computer classes to the public and assisting non-profits with
their technology programs.
They have established a computer lab at Akron Metropolitan Housing
Authority, where they have taught numerous classes and permitted other
non-profit groups like OASIS to use the lab for their programs without
cost. They also have provided refurbished computers to their students.
Southwest Florida PC User Group
(http://www.swfpcug.org)
Year 2000 "Super Senior" award from the Florida Council on aging
received by Southwest Florida PC User Group President.
Southwest Florida PC User Group provides free Internet Seminars to
members of Older Adult Services at Lee Memorial Hospital and at several Lee
County Regional Libraries. They have created a web page that provides an
opportunity for anyone in Southwest Florida to post a computer question and
receive a response from their knowledgeable members and professional
technicians.
Their weekly computer article "Good Boot" in the Fort Myers News-Press,
focuses on assisting novice users. These articles have generated six
thousand e-mails requesting assistance since November of 1999 and an
estimated increase in their membership this year of one thousand.
This year they added two new Community Chapters and Four Regional Chapters
to provide computer information and assistance for those who cannot travel
to their main meetings. Southwest Florida PC User Group members provide
the programs and presentation equipment every month for twelve of their
fifteen chapters and periodically for the others.
Tri-City Computer Club
(http://www.access1.net/tccc)
Tri-City Computer Club volunteers work in coordination with the
Salvation Army on behalf of underprivileged people.
Tri-City Computer Club provides and schedules volunteers to support the
Salvation Army in many capacities. This is done in appreciation for their
generous hospitality towards the their seniors computer club. Any awards
will be designated to support the programs of the Salvation in Oceanside,
including enhancing their computer literacy program.
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