Special Students Get Take-Home Computers
By Kyle Bailey, The Miami Herald
Feb. 18–Rosa Roschee’s sons attend Neva King Cooper Educational Center, a school for students with special needs. Theirs was one of 15 low-income families at the Homestead school who recently were given free computers to take home — a gift that surely will make their difficult lives a bit easier.
"It’s a blessing for both me and my family," Roschee said.
Her sons James, 13, and Edward, 16, both have cerebral palsy and need constant supervision, Roschee said. Her daughter Roxelle is an honors student at Southridge High in Cutler Bay. When Roxelle needed a computer for schoolwork, her mom had to borrow a van to take her sons along to the Southridge computer lab.
"I would sometimes have to wait hours while she finished her assignments," Roschee said. "Now with the computer at home, we don’t have to go through that."
The computers were donated through the efforts of a nonprofit group called the On It Foundation — Opportunities Necessary to Increase Technology — and Miami-based Ryder Systems, which has an ongoing relationship with Neva King Cooper.
The group and Ryder teamed up to provide the computers and training to low-income families with students in grades K-12. The computers had been used at Ryder and were donated after the company upgraded their equipment.
Calvetta Phair, president and founder of the On It Foundation, started the organization in 1999 when she couldn’t afford a computer for her daughter.
"We tried to find an organization willing to donate their extra computer equipment to us," Phair said, "but they all said we needed to be a non-profit organization. So I started one on my own."
Neva King students were the first beneficiaries of the computer giveaways. The school serves profoundly mentally handicapped and physically disabled children from prekindergarten through high school.
Sarah Laucirica, a social worker at the school, said teachers polled their students to see who didn’t have a computer at home and could not afford one.
The computers, valued at more than $12,000 combined, were distributed Jan. 27.
"There’s a lot of need there, and some great work going on," said David Bruce, a Ryder spokesman. "It’s a very positive experience."
Employees from Ryder Systems and members of the Adventure Club, a school volunteer group, donated their time to train the students and parents on how to assemble and operate the computers. After the training, the students took the computers home.
"They were tremendously grateful and moved that people could be so generous," Laucirica said.
Phair said that her group and Ryder Systems plan to donate computers to other needy families around Miami-Dade County.
"Hopefully we can grow and partner up with other organizations," she said.
Assistant Principal Henny Cristobol said that Ryder Systems’ generosity is part of an existing relationship with the school. "For the past eight or nine years they’ve been partners with us," he said. "They give presents to our kids during Christmas and Thanksgiving. It’s a pretty cool thing, a real team effort."
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Miami Herald
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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