The Sacramento Bee: Sacramento bridges digital divide with 200 new computers. Here’s who got one

Jack Rodriquez-Vars, The Sacramento Bee

Julie Rhoten stood outside Sacramento City Hall on Tuesday morning, patiently waiting for her name to be called.

“I’m prepared to be excited,” Rhoten said.

She did not have to wait long. Within 30 minutes of arriving, Rhoten’s name was announced over a microphone. She strolled up to a table in City Hall’s breezeway with a wide smile and received a wagon overflowing with eight brand new laptops for her nonprofit, Stanford Settlement Neighborhood Center.

“It’s kind of like the lottery,” Rhoten joked.

She was not the only winner. Sacramento’s Information Technology Department distributed 200 media kits on Tuesday to 19 community-based organizations and the College of Business at Sacramento State. Each kit contained a new Dell laptop, a T-Mobile MiFi mobile hotspot device and two years of prepaid internet service.

The kits were distributed as part of the city’s Digital Equity Response Program, which provides digital resources like equipment and training to Sacramento residents and organizations.

The city emailed community leaders like Rhoten about the media kits two months ago. Rhoten’s nonprofit provides programs for young kids, teens and seniors in North Sacramento, and she recalled jumping on the opportunity to revamp her center’s equipment.

“We have some dinosaur computers in our senior centers that the seniors use,” Rhoten explained.

“They’re always wanting to be able to learn more, to get on the Internet and to have more of a digital presence.”

Heather Haight, executive director of the GreenHouse in Gardenland, hopes to support a younger demographic.

“I think the majority of the laptops will go to our teen internship programs, which are college and career readiness programs,” Haight said. With eight new laptops, the teens will be able to create résumés and prepare for job interviews.

While the laptops for community organizations will stay on each group’s premises, 50 information systems students at Sacramento State will get to keep their own media kits.

Sixty percent of information systems students at CSUS are eligible for Pell Grants, according to chair of the department of information systems and business analytics Joseph Taylor, compared to 48% of students school-wide.

While most information systems students have their own computer, Taylor said, some do not. To ensure every student has equal access, the information systems department holds courses in labs that have computers at each seat. But the department does not have enough computers to meet the increasing demand in enrollment.

Taylor explained that the gift from the city allows information systems courses to move into larger classrooms without computers at each seat.

“It will absolutely help to expand enrollment,” Taylor said. The department will begin distributing computers to students this fall.

The city’s commitment to digital equity

Sacramento’s Digital Equity Response Program began during the COVID-19 pandemic to address disparities in internet and technology access.

“It’s my opinion that this is one of the most important pieces of our COVID response,” said then-Vice Mayor Jeff Harris during a City Council meeting in August 2020 to approve funding for the program.

At first, funding for the program came from the federal CARES Act and California’s Coronavirus Relief Fund. With a budget of $750,000, the Digital Equity Response Program partnered with United Way California Capital Region to train residents using technology for the first time and provide access to the internet.

In its first year, the program gave digital training to 2,900 households, provided internet connectivity to 1,800 households and donated 1,000 laptops to residents, according to the city’s approved 2021-2022 budget.

Last summer, though, the city almost cut the program. In the city manager’s proposal, the program’s operating budget of $200,000 a year was completely reduced. The City Council voted to restore the funding in the budget’s final form.

Councilmember Karina Talamantes thinks that digital equity should continue to be a priority for the city.

“Technology is at the core of everything we do,” she said on Tuesday. “Broadband access is as important as housing, as food, as everything else.”

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