Northampton Neighbors helps bridge digital divide at Walter Salvo House
Published: 01-01-2025 12:30 PM |
NORTHAMPTON — Several residents of the Walter Salvo House on Conz Street are now a little more connected to the digital world, after receiving new laptops as part of a program run through Northampton Neighbors, a non-profit focused on serving older adults in the community.
Nina Kleinberg, a member of Northampton Neighbors’ tech team, led a small group of volunteers that worked with residents to set up their new laptops, equipped with the latest Windows 11 operating system and given to Northampton Neighbors by the Dennis Group, an engineering firm in Springfield.
“We are doing this for a variety of reasons, and one of them is to keep [the laptops] out of landfills,” Kleinberg said. “When people become aware that Windows is going to stop supporting Windows 10, there can be millions of laptops in landfills, and we have to not let that happen.”
Microsoft Windows, the most popular operating system for laptop computers, is expected to meet its end of life for the Windows 10 version in October 2025. When that happens, Microsoft will no longer update or provide technical support for Windows 10, leading to potential security risks for users.
Northampton Neighbors ended up obtaining 53 laptops from the Dennis Group, although many had various issues such as broken keyboards and faulty hardware. Kleinberg, who has been a self-taught computer hobbyist since purchasing a Kaypro computer in 1984, worked to take pieces out of some of the broken computers to fully restore the others, ending up with more than two dozen fully functional laptops running Windows 11.
“I cannibalized what I could and put together 26 usable laptops,” Kleinberg said. “I’ve got hard drives, I’ve got RAM chips, I’ve got heat sinks for the hard drives.”
But the recycling of the computers does more than just prevent landfill. For the residents of Walter Salvo House who sign up to receive one of the computers, it allows them a chance to connect online, enabling them to keep in touch with family members, or access streaming services for movies and television at a price lower than it would be with a cable company.
Flor Florido, a resident of the 192-unit public housing building originally from Columbia, plans to use her new computer to help her keep track of medical appointments and stay in touch with her daughter and grandson. “I’m so grateful,” Florido said with the assistance of a translator. “I had a computer a long time ago, but this is the first one I’ve had since then.”
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Fellow resident Mark Stacy said he would use his new laptop for watching YouTube as well as uploading comics he drew and hosting them online. “I have a laptop, but the batteries on it are dying. So I’m excited to get a new one,” he said.
For many residents, the prospect of a new computer can still be intimidating, said Jada Tarbutton-Springfield, who also serves on Northampton Neighbors’ Inclusion Committee. Many residents still aren’t as familiar with technology as the general population, despite the necessity of computers in the modern world, evidenced especially by the COVID-19 pandemic when lockdowns forced many people to get in touch with family and friends online.
“They might look at it like something from the Twilight Zone, something new comes along and they’re scared,” Tarbutton-Springfield said. “That’s why we’re having Nina here, that you can call for tech stuff, and then the fear goes away from it.”
The next step for helping bridge the digital equity divide for residents of Walter Salvo House, Tarbutton-Springfield said, was the adoption of free, public Wi-Fi for residents, many of whom need to pay for a router if they want to connect to the internet inside their own apartment. Tarbutton-Springfield said she had been in touch with tenants of public housing in North Adams, which earlier this year had been a recipient of a state grant to provide free Wi-Fi to residents in their apartments.
“Their people fought and said, we need this because of what happened during the pandemic,” she said. “They [residents] do need it, they are people, and they are willing to learn.”
Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.