At Girls Inc. of Metro Denver, everything the organization does centers around a single purpose: helping girls and non-binary youth grow into strong, smart, and bold individuals. But when the pandemic struck, its entire mission was put on the line. As stay-at-home orders were put into effect and their center on West Colfax closed, leadership worried how they could continue serving more than 2,000 girls with positive impact.
“I think it dawned on me in May that we weren’t coming back for a while,” says President and CEO of Girls Inc. of Metro Denver, Sonya Ulibarri, by video. “Our work is really rooted in the value of high-touch, high engagement programs. That model had to shift very quickly. We had to think of how to implement programming in a virtual setting.”
Still, with all of the stressors and demands of living life in the “new normal,” the organization didn’t want to add any additional burdens to the girls’ lives, including more “Zoom fatigue.” With families facing income loss and instability, food insecurity, and a taxing remote learning environment, Girls Inc. of Metro Denver realized it couldn’t deliver on its mission without recognizing the digital divide and upgrading its connectivity.
“We really had to face, in an immediate way, the connectivity issues with our girls and families,” explains Ulibarri. “We weren’t just thinking of our strategy with programming, but also their schooling. How can we help them [learn] without reliable hardware, software, or consistent access to the internet? Equity has been this incredibly central theme we couldn’t ignore anymore.”
Girls Inc. of Metro Denver wasn’t alone. At the Boys and Girls Club of Denver Metro, the leadership team was also scrambling to provide virtual programming and family assistance. When the clubs opened to a limited number of members after summer, Dawn Rocky, director of corporate relations says the team quickly realized the organization didn’t have the personnel, infrastructure or capacity to facilitate remote learning services.
“The kids all started rolling in with school-issued devices, and [our infrastructure] was not built to handle it all,” adds Jim Medina, the group’s IT Manager, explaining the team first tried to purchase mobile hotspots to no avail. “By the time 50 kids rolled in, I was out of bandwidth. They were streaming their Google Meet classes and were getting dropped. I was getting complaints.”
The coronavirus crisis has exacerbated the “homework gap,” for students nationwide. As schools shift to virtual classrooms or hybrid learning environments, lower income and underserved students are left struggling to overcome the digital divide. A study by Pew Research found that roughly one-third of parents with homebound school children resorted to completing homework on a cellphone.
Roughly 30 percent lacked the computer devices necessary to fully participate in learning or relied on public access to WiFi because they did not have reliable internet connection within the home; many
To help combat barriers to broadband adoption and other digital inequities in the state, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, Denver Mayor, Michael B. Hancock, and Comcast Corporation recently joined forces to announce plans to equip more than 20 locations in Denver Metro with WiFi-connected “Lift Zones.”
“Digital equity has always been important,” says Weiser, in a virtual discussion with Comcast announcing the initiative. “We’ve long talked about the homework gap, [and] people doing their homework in a Starbucks parking lot. It’s not okay, and now it’s worse than ever. We need innovation and creative partnerships to be resilient during this challenging time.”
Weiser adds creating public-private collaboration, including with Comcast, has been paramount to enabling broadband access across the state.
The Lift Zones provide free WiFi provided by Comcast inside partner community centers and ensure students can successfully participate in distance learning, even as they simultaneously work on connected devices. The initiative is an extension of the corporation’s Internet Essentials program, which has helped connect more than 300,000 Coloradans to the internet at home since it first launched nearly a decade ago.
“We will continue to align with our local leaders and elected officials, school districts, and foundations and the nonprofit community to do what we can to reach families and individuals,” says Amy Lynch, Comcast SVP of the Mountain West division. “It’s amazing to hear from our community leaders and partners about the kind of impact these Lift Zones are having on the community.”
The mayors acknowledge the connectivity gap both before and during the pandemic, especially in economically challenged regions, something they pointed out typically has a high percentage of parents who work as essential workers.
“The [Lift Zones] are right in the neighborhoods that are most in need,” says Coffman. “How extraordinary it will be to have a safe place that is conducive to learning that these young people can go to to be able to do this remote learning for our students to help our families.”
“Being in the rec centers is critically important,” adds Hancock. “They play an important role as neighborhood hubs. Students are provided safe and supportive environments, they’re provided tutorial services, virtually using free, reliable, internet to complete their homework. It’s critical to helping students stay on task for the year.”
As part of Comcast’s efforts, both Girls Inc. of Metro Denver and the Boys and Girls Club of Denver Metro and Girls Inc. received Lift Zones at their respective community centers, this fall. As Girls Inc. began to welcome select members back into their center, having the Lift Zone was received as a welcome sigh of relief.
“We don’t have the challenges that we may have had to do that work on site,” says Ulibarri. “The fear was the long-term learning loss if they could not be met adequately. The Lift Zones support those activities by being those technology hubs. Through the challenge, we’ve also found opportunities to connect to girls in a remote learning environment. We have to keep the bright spots.”
Leaders at the Boys and Girls Club of Denver Metro agreed.
“This year required us to do things we’ve never done before,” says Annie Zdrojewski, the organization's communications manager. “But it opens the door to adapting and innovating and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
In addition to Comcast’s Lift Zone sites, the company and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser recently announced grants and resources totalling $150,000 to support internet safety and digital literacy programs throughout the state.
To learn more about Comcast’s Internet Essentials programming, visit: https://internetessentials.com/.
This article was written by Stephanie Sorrina Beecher
