Articles

Team Andersen donates $25K in technology to GPSS

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jamie Lessard
  • 36th Wing Public Affairs
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam --  Christmas came early for island students this year in the form of $25,000 worth of computers donated to their classes on Nov. 7.

Andersen Airmen delivered 24 personal computers to the Guam Public School System Special Education Program to enhance GPSS' educational opportunities.

Jane Sasai, the 36th Communications Squadron equipment control officer, said Andersen may make donations to schools that submit a letter stating their needs to the Department of Defense Computer For Learning program.

A school is eligible to receive donations through the DoD CFL program if it is a public, private, or a parochial school serving pre-kindergarten through grade 12 students. Schools and educational nonprofit organizations must be located within the United States or its territories to be eligible. Special consideration for computer donations will be given to schools and educational nonprofits in Federal empowerment zones and enterprise communities.

Established by law in 1993, empowerment zones and enterprise communities were designed to create self-sustaining, long-term economic development in areas of pervasive poverty and unemployment.

According to Christine Rosario, GPSS program coordinator for the assistive technology under the division of special education, the computers Andersen donated will benefit over 200 special needs students in over 20 classrooms on Guam.

The first of the computers donated went to Okkodo High School. Others will go to Inarajan and Ocean View Middle Schools and Tamuning and Maria Ulloa Elementary Schools.

"The classes that are receiving these computers have very low end and sometimes no computers at all in them," said Ms. Sasai.

Ms. Rosario thanked Ms. Sasai and the Airmen who delivered the desktop computers explaining how beneficial they would be to the special needs students' education.

"The challenge has been that we would issue the students laptops and they would drop or break them, with the desktop that alleviates the problem," said Mrs. Rosario.

She added that programs like Kurzweil 3000, a comprehensive reading, writing and learning software solution for struggling readers and individuals with learning difficulties, and Math Blaster, a program that helps children build confidence, speed and accuracy in basic math skills, will be added to the computers.

This year Andersen has donated 90 PC's and monitors to John F. Kennedy High School, Mount Carmel Catholic School and the Guam Public School System Special Education Program.

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