October 29, 2015
Today’s Mobile Citizen story features Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center in Cleveland. Only 8 days left till the shutdown. Sign our petition today.
Asbury Senior Computer Community Center (ASC³) is a nonprofit inter-generational learning center bridging the digital divide in Cleveland’s inner-city communities. The center provides tech-based education, training and resources to adults with limited income.
Wanda Davis, the center’s founder and executive director, said many clients come to ASC³ because they have children in multiple grades who need Internet access to do their homework. She said scenarios like the following are common:
Parents with four children, all different ages and grades, getting out of school at different times and in different locations, needing to be wrangled up by their parents to get to the library so they can complete their online assignments. If they are lucky enough to find an open computer, one child can get started, but the other three wait in line for their turn.
Families like these had no other choice prior to Mobile Citizen’s affordable, unlimited Internet access. The bandwidth required for multiple users and streaming needed for school work is substantial, Davis said, and limiting the center’s clients to 6GB a month will mean the families are once again without Internet.
“They would be cut off, or have to work at a snail’s pace. That is why it is so devastating that I may have to tell that family that the service they now have come to depend on may be taken away. Devastating!”
In addition to families, ASC³ clients affected by the Sprint shutdown include college-bound students, senior citizens and job-seekers. Davis said in the 13 years ASC³ has existed, she has seen technology make a big difference in the lives of its clients. Continued progress, however, is threatened by the looming Nov. 6 shutdown.
“If the rumors are true, and we lose our unlimited and affordable Internet service, it will have a major impact on our organization and be devastating to the people we serve.”
If you agree Cleveland’s most vulnerable community members deserve continued affordable Internet access, please sign our petition.
Read the full Asbury Senior Computer Community Center story.