May 28, 2008 9:48 am US/Pacific
Narrowing the Digital Divide for Bay Area Kids
Jefferson Award Winner: Corey Linehan
(CBS 5)
It's letter writing day for Miss Hoskins' third graders at San Francisco's Megan Furth Academy, and Corey Linehan is there to help students learn how to best use their computers.
"Corey taught us how to do stuff like a math problem, like four times four. We draw circles like one, two, three, four, four times and we have our answer!" says 9-year-old Joseph Lofton. "It's really, really fun."
Eight-year-old Chyna Garcia says she only knew a little about computers before this class.
"I learned how to type better, and I just use these fingers," she says with a laugh, holding up both index fingers.
These children have this computer lab because 18-year-old Corey started a non-profit called "No Child Left Unplugged." He came up with the idea when he was only 14 years old. While volunteering at an inner city school, he noticed some old, unused computers.
"They were the same computers that I had been using back in my school in kindergarten!" he explains. "So that was a nine-year difference there, and that just sort of bugged me 'cause I'm a very technologically-oriented person."
Even though Corey was only 14 when he came up with his idea, he's responsible for bringing together all the things that created the computer lab at Megan Furth. He got the Warriors basketball team to donate the paint and materials and he got IBM to give up the computers.
It took Corey, now a high school senior, three years to put all those pieces together and to file the paperwork necessary to start a non-profit.
"I just worked on it when I had some free time over the weekends and stuff like that," he says. "Then once we got the IRS approval in the summer of 2006, I started working on trying to get some money and trying to get this lab set up and we were able to open it last year."
Raymond O'Connor is one of Corey's teachers. He says he's never had another student take on such an elaborate community service project.
"Whenever you have somebody so determined at such a young age to do so much good and then to go and have the patience to deal with all the people -- the adults, the paperwork, the lawyers -- to do it, that's special," he says.
One other special thing Corey did: he used some of his own scholarship money to help get his non-profit started.
"To sort of pay the IRS filing fees and stuff like that," he explains. "My parents said they'd be willing to let me do that. That's pretty generous. If they hadn't done that I wouldn't have been able to do this."
For generosity and foresight that is helping close the gap in the digital divide for many children, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Corey Linehan.
For more information on Corey Linehan's innovative computer program, click here: No Child Left Unplugged
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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