Dickenson County Computer Assistance Program update

The Dickenson County Computer Assistance Program (CAP) sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Clinchco, Kiwanis Club of Clintwood and ATD Fourth World has now delivered several computers to youth in the county. We have partnered with the Dickenson County School System, Dickenson County Behavioral Health Services, and the Dickenson County Department of Social Services in having this project come to fruition. Instrumental in championing the program to date are J R Robinson and James Andrew Rose. The overall goal of this project is to donate computers to families and children that have no access to a home computer and to provide computer training to Dickenson County residents.

The actual computer donations began at the end of April when representatives of the Dickenson County Department of Social Services delivered computer set-ups to Dickenson County students enrolled in their program. Our recent group of recipients were identified by staff of the Dickenson County Behavioral Health Services. As of this writing a total of 12 computer set-ups have been delivered to local students.

The Kiwanis Club of Clintwood and Kiwanis Club of Clinchco have had two significant partners in getting their CAP community service project off the ground. First to recognize is the Dickenson County School System and School Board who coordinated with school IT staff to identify unused computers, monitors and keyboards that were classified as surplus equipment. The first round of donations used the best of this equipment, with the addition of new hard drives. Since many of the donated computers are older models, many have supplied spare parts while others will necessitate significant hardware updates prior to being ready for donation. While we have had several families donate computers to this project, as of this date the school system has been our major donor.
The second partner to recognize is ATD Fourth World and the use of their Reedy Ridge facilities, a partnership coordinated by Selena Culbertson. The mission of ATD Fourth World is to advocate and act to overcome the injustices of persistent poverty and social exclusion by bringing together people from all walks of life, learning from people who face poverty every day and running family and community projects. They first arrived in our area in 1995 and one of their first projects was to offer basic computer classes to adults, a phase in the CAP project that we will be launching next month. The first session will start on June 2 as basic computer training with an introduction to Microsoft Word and how to use the various elements of this software program.
If you are interested in becoming a sponsor/donor, student or desire to join Kiwanis please send an email to ClintwoodKiwanis419@gmail.com with your contact information.

To learn more about Kiwanis activities please visit the district website at http://www.capital.kiwanisone.org/ , or contact a local Kiwanis Club member. Each club warmly welcomes anyone interested in joining an active service organization that is dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time.