THE TIMOTHY SMITH NETWORK

THE TIMOTHY SMITH NETWORK

I came across this Community Technology Center located in Massachusetts and thought I would share what I think is our communities greatest resource, our children. The future of this country and our communities begin with the development of our youth. The Timothy Smith Network provides its services to 3,000 students monthly in an effort to better educate and develop the kids of the Greater Roxbury area, a good model to follow. Below is their story.

The Timothy Smith Network (TSN) is a collaborative community computer technology centers working together to help the residents of Roxbury, Massachusetts and its surrounding neighborhoods (hereafter, Greater Roxbury) to build the technological skills, confidence and knowledge required to be successful in the information economy. The TSN provides broad-based support to its member centers designed to ensure that the technology programs and services available to Greater Roxbury residents are of a high and consistent quality and are responsive to resident needs. Each month, Timothy Smith (TS) Centers provide free or low-cost technology-related programs and services to nearly 3,000 students and address a broad range of economic, therapeutic, health, educational, training, human and social service needs of the community. The TSN seeks to provide a model for the development and implementation of coordinated community technology center planning and service delivery in densely populated low-income urban communities.The TS Centers were originally launched in 1997 through grants from the Timothy Smith Fund for “Old Roxbury”, a charitable trust managed by the City of Boston Trust Office. The Fund has authorized grants totaling $2,400,00 to community-based non-profit organizations in “Old Roxbury” for the creation of 40 computer-learning centers. Defined as the boundaries of Roxbury in 1858, “Old Roxbury,” includes the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, and a portion of the neighboring Jamaica Plain, Fenway-Kenmore, Dorchester and the South End. In addition to start-up funds for TS Centers, the Fund provides regular computer hardware and furnishing upgrades in the sites through 2019. The TSN was established in 2002 to coordinate the services and leverage the collective technical, financial and intellectual resources of the TS Centers to ensure that services and programs offered meet resident needs and are of high and consistent quality. The TSN supports TS Centers to deliver effective technology training and services by: identifying and developing collaborative program and funding opportunities; providing broad-based technical, financial and operational capacity building support to the centers; promoting cross-center cooperation and peer learning through joint trainings and workshops; facilitating the exchange of information among centers through its listserv and website; and developing performance and learning outcomes standards to ensure that all member centers are providing consistent technology programs and services.Since 2002, the TSN has established an impressive track record for managing large-scale grants and funds. The TSN was designated by the City of Boston Trust Office to administer an estimated $500,000 in annual hardware and furniture upgrades for the TS Centers on behalf of the Timothy Smith Fund beginning in 2003. Programmatically, the TSN has partnered with Kinetic City, Science Quest and the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI) to bring high-quality science after school programs to TS Centers for youth in grades 3 through 12. Through these partnerships, the TSN has provided high quality after school programming for the benefit of over 4800 Roxbury youth during the past two years.

http://www.timothysmithnetwork.org/TSN/centers-about.htm