The dozens of students enrolled in summer programs at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Ohio (BGCCO) J. Ashburn Jr. Clubhouse in Columbus were already enjoying the high-speed fiber internet connections and Dell computers that were added to the Clubhouse when it became the home of a new AT&T Connected Learning Center in April. But that was just the beginning.
Their eyes lit up when they saw the big blue bus bringing them an afternoon of soccer-related activities from the Major League Soccer (MLS) All-Star Skills Mobile Tour. In conjunction with the 2024 MLS All-Star Game and the All-Star Skills Challenge presented by AT&T which recently took place in Columbus, we stopped by to announce AT&T is making a new charitable contribution of $25,000 to support BGCCO programming.
And then the new connections became even more personal.
We talked with the students about all the ways they’ve been using the Connected Learning Center and asked them if having their own laptop computers would provide more opportunities to play and learn with digital technology. They’ll be able to experience it first-hand, with 125 refurbished laptops provided by AT&T and Human I-T.
In Ohio, it’s estimated that 11% of households don’t have access to the internet or connected devices needed to fully participate in the online world, an issue known as the digital divide.
“Any time we can expose our kids to a new resource, an experience, a skill, a person… it only adds to their fulfillment. And that’s a bridge, an experience that could inspire and plant seeds and that’s what we do at the Boys & Girls Clubs,” said Georden Burton, J. Ashburn Jr. Clubhouse Director at BGCCO. “Any contribution is big because it goes directly to supporting our youth and their experiences here. It supports us being able to change lives here and enable these kids to reach their full potential.”
On July 23, thousands of soccer fans at the 2024 MLS All-Star Skills Challenge at Lower.com Field cheered as they watched a video of J. Ashburn Jr. Clubhouse participants celebrating the AT&T contribution, laptops, and soccer activities.
See the video for yourself:
Our efforts at the BGCCO J. Ashburn Jr. Clubhouse are part of the AT&T Connected Learning® initiative to help address the digital divide through internet accessibility, affordability and safe adoption. AT&T is committing $5 billion to help 25 million people get and stay connected to high-speed internet by 2030. This includes distributing more than 2,500 computers to students and their families across Ohio since 2021.
Each computer and each student represent new connections to greater possibility, the best ‘goal’ of all!
