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Outline of Need:
Westside Elementary School District (a one school district) located in Five Points, California (part of Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities) needed new computers and a fax machine.
How Rural Development Helped:
Westside Elementary School District in Five Points (within the EZ/EC) recently received good news from USDA Rural Development. The U.S. Customs Service had recently upgraded all of its computer and information technology (IT) systems, and contacted Rural Development in California because they are required to offer their excess IT equipment to EZ/EC communities.
The Results:
Mr. Baldo Hernandez, Principal and Superintendent of Westside Elementary School District, drove his truck towing a borrowed trailer to Oakland to pick up the U.S. Customs Service's excess equipment. The equipment was dirty from sitting in warehouses for several weeks, but some of it was relatively new. Mr. Hernandez brought back a new fax machine, which was immediately used to replace their former machine that had failed repeatedly. A few weeks later, he drove back to Oakland to pick up a second cargo of computers and computer-related equipment.
Two days after the second pick-up, more than forty people from the community gathered at the Westside Elementary School to clean and test the computers. Tables in the cafeteria were literally covered with equipment. Willing hands cleaned the exterior cases while more skilled computer operators (volunteer California State University Fresno students and faculty) began testing the equipment and loading operating systems. Many of the computers are now up and running for use by Westside Elementary School students who have not had access to computers. Another workday is being scheduled in the near future to get the remaining computers operational.
<< Computer rehabilitation project at Westside Elementary. Volunteers busy at work cleaning and testing computers.
(May 2003)
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