Two women try to bring computers to children

Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times

Sylvia Ford (left), with Frost Bank, and Gloria Simmons, manager of Northside Manor Apartments, hope they can get their computer lab up and running again with the assistance of volunteers.

   Every weekday morning last summer, 12-year-old Clydessa Coleman jumped out of bed, dressed quickly and by 9 a.m. was at Northside Manor Apartments' community center.
   More than 300 children from the neighborhood also showed up for activities that summer and early birds like Clydessa were the first admitted into free computer classes offered at the center.
   Back then, not a single computer sat idle. To accommodate all requests for computer time, users were assigned a first-come, first-served 30-minute time slot. But one year later, that learning has come to a halt. All 26 computers are locked in a room because no funds materialized this year to hire a computer literacy instructor and volunteers subsequently dwindled to zero.

How to help To volunteer, call Sylvia Ford at 844-1213. To donate computers, computer programs or money to the computer center, call Gloria Simmons at 883-1622.

   When Sylvia Ford, community development director with Frost National Bank, learned of the dilemma recently, she knew it was a challenge she couldn't walk away from.
   "This neighborhood has needs and somehow, some way there needs to be public awareness about them. And I personally felt that had to start with me," said Ford, who also donates home-cooked meals to the Salvation Army's mobile feeding canteen that distributes food to the homeless within a 20-block area of downtown Corpus Christi.
   Ford has not only signed herself up as a volunteer, she is recruiting others among her bank's volunteer group, and is looking for more volunteers in the community to make the computer class available once again for neighborhood children after-school .
   Clydessa, a seventh-grader at Driscoll Middle School, can hardly wait.
   "Whenever I have an assignment at school, I'll come here and work on them," said Clydessa, who doesn't have a computer at home but says the ones at the community center are the next best thing.
   Ford plans to restart the computer literacy classes early next month, with classes running from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. But Ford would like to see volunteers help more than just the children. She hopes to eventually incorporate sessions for parents on topics like budgeting, balancing a checkbook and home ownership.
   Restarting the computer classes, however, is Ford's first priority. The classes originated when Lena Coleman founded the Meals for Kids program in 1996 at Northside Manor.
   Coleman, owner of a business management and consultant company, said a one-time grant two years ago from the Weed and Seed program helped pay the salary for the computer class instructor. Other years, she has paid the salary through her own business.
   "But I can't do it alone," said Coleman, who was recently offered a much-larger building in the heart of the neighborhood to use as a site for the childrens' computer center. Although excited about the prospect of moving it out of Northside Manor's small community center, Coleman doesn't have the money to make the much-needed renovations that the larger building needs.
   For now, Coleman said, she makes do as best she can because she must.
   "The community center is so small we have to resort to what looks like an assembly line to get all the kids through here," she said. "But what we offer here is very beneficial to the children of the Northside because many are isolated. Because low-income parents don't have the transportation to take their kids to recreation centers or activities elsewhere, it's important that we make activities available out here for the children."