$100K grant from ServiceNow helps renovate room 100 children use

P.A. Walsh STEAM Academy students Yeilin (in front), 10, and her friends Blanca (standing), 10, and Erika, 9, discover the Tech Room’s laptops at the Aug. 24 ribbon-cutting event. Photo courtesy Garcia Girls

By Marty Cheek

Many children living in the Galvan Park neighborhood will soon find the doors of Silicon Valley opening for them. They now have opportunities to use high-powered computer equipment at the new Tech Room recently launched at the Morgan Hill Boys and Girls Club.

Laptops on tables circling a small room at the Friendly Inn site are now available for young people who use the facility from 3:30 to 6 p.m. weekdays. Among them are P.A. Walsh STEAM Academy students Yeilin, 10, and her friends Blanca, 10, and Erika, 9.

“I haven’t used it yet but I think it’s super cool,” Yeilin said at the Aug. 24 ribbon-cutting event to dedicate the Tech Room.

She believes technology is a good thing for girls to learn. “It makes you smarter,” she said.

Blanca appreciates the hard work that went into providing the children with the Tech Room.

“It looks cool,” she said.

The use of the computers will help Erika and other children at the Boys & Girls Club develop the technology skills they will need to have good well-paying jobs when they grow up.

Photo courtesy Garcia Girls

“It’s super cool because it gives us a great place for us to learn how to use computers,” she said.

The Morgan Hill branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley serves about 100 children at the main site next to Galvan Park as well as a mini-club at the Ochoa Migrate Camp in Gilroy. Its mission is to inspire and empower all young people to realize their full potential as productive, responsible, and caring adults, said Armando Garcia, the owner of a local computer service company. He enjoys spending his volunteer hours involved with helping kids at the Morgan Hill club grow academically as well as emotionally.

When the children come to the clubhouse after school, they get a snack and many of them immediately start focusing on doing their homework. Before the Tech Room, they would work on their assignments in the main room where there was considerable noise as other children played games or did arts and crafts, said Steve Wymer, BGCSV president and CEO.

“When the kids need to sit down to write a paper or work on a project, they need a quiet space,” he said. “And so we had our computers out on the main room, and we needed a space where you could close a door. And this space was empty and wasn’t being utilized.”

It cost $40,000 to renovate the room and an additional $55,000 to purchase the tables and chairs as well as high-powered computers (both PCs and Macs), televisions, printers and even a 3-D printer.

Wymer sees the potential opportunities for many of the club’s children to get their first experience working on the machines. They can also learn the basics of writing software through online courses designed for kids.

Photo courtesy Garcia Girls

“What we want to stay away from is the gaming — even though that’s fun, and kids want to do that,” he said. “We really want to have them focus on their academics and maybe pursue things that can help them expand their horizons.”

The vast majority of children don’t have broadband access at home, Wymer said. Many of them receive Title One free and reduced lunches at their schools and there are children with families who are financially struggling to find a safe place to go in the afternoon.

“There are kids who don’t have a stable base of support in terms of their academics and in terms of their ability to navigate this whole innovation economy,” he said. “They can do anything they want, but we have to give them the shot to do it.”

The BGCSV received a $100,000 donation from tech employer ServiceNow to pay for the creation of the Tech Room to help the low-income, high-risk youth in Morgan Hill. About 100 members of the community gathered Aug. 24 for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the Tech Room’s completion.  Club youth shared their passions at dedicated stations in the main room featuring artistic painting, chess games, and a Lego robotics demonstration.

“ServiceNow is committed to helping close the digital divide. One way we can have an impact is to focus on creating new opportunities for our youth,” said Chris Rogers, head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at ServiceNow, in a press release. “We are excited to partner with the Boys and Girls Club in Morgan Hill in creating a safe place for children with free access to technology. With 98 percent of youth served at the club from lower-income families, this is an incredibly important investment to support them on their learning journey.”

As a nonprofit organization, the BGCSV has been at the forefront of youth development in Santa Clara County for more than 75 years. Through the help of various communities and an army of volunteers, it provides innovative and effective after-school and summer enrichment programs primarily for low income, at-risk Santa Clara County youth ages 5-18 years.

With more 125,000 kids living below the federal poverty line in the Bay Area, supporting local organizations is a necessity. Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley aims to help close the opportunity gap to achieve greater economic, political, and social equality among under-resourced youth and the communities in which they live.

The new space brings together the positive environment of the club and innovative technology to promote education and key technical skill development in youth. The technology lab will help the youths pursue the objective of building and inspiring future leaders in technology, Wymer said.

“This is an amazing opportunity for our tech sector, our municipal elected officials who are here to support us, and the club to collaborate together to make our community better,” he said. “On behalf of hundreds of kids in Morgan Hill who will now have access to a state-of-the-art technology room, we extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to the wonderful team at ServiceNow.”

Garcia sees the club as a way to encourage young people to find a place where they can learn and be productive and not fall into the traps of a negative lifestyle, he said.

“Technology is pervasive right now. It’s almost in anything you do,” he said. “If kids fall behind in technology, they’re at a real loss. They have to stay abreast and how can they do that if they can’t afford equipment?”

He encourages residents who are seeking a way to help local young people to consider visiting the club and seeing if they might wish to volunteer.

“You recognize the potential, you release the potential and you reach the potential for these kids,” he said.  “All these kids have potential. We need to recognize that potential and how we do that is by letting them participate in the tech, in the games, in the chess. And let’s release that by letting them come here and work on that potential and have them reach that potential as adults.”