Neighbors Empowering Youth, Inc. is celebrating the opening of its new computer technology training center today with an open house that starts at 5 PM. The center is located at 2662 N. Fair Oaks Ave.
(Pictured: NEY founder John Smith)
NEY is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) service organization that provides computers and computer training to the underserved youth of Altadena and northwest Pasadena.
NEY's president and founder John Smith said that they moved the center from its previous Lincoln Village location because they needed the room to match their ambitions.
"Most people we work with are low-income families, without computer access," Smith said. Among the programs NEY offers are providing free computers to students and their families who might otherwise not get them, along with twelves hours of training in Word, Excel, and internet safety. NEY has to date trained over 150 adults and have awarded over 100 computers to students of area schools.
NEY also has an outreach program, where they conduct training for both youth and adults, and a computer workshops that allow young adults to participate in hands-on learning in an environment that places emphasis on computer-related skills and technologies. They have set up computer labs at Little Citizens Daycare Center, Pasadena Recovery Center, and Morning Star Baptist Church.
Another important program is the "Mouse Squad," which trains high school youth in first-level computer technical support skills, which they can share in the schools they attend.
NEY has also fielded teams of youth in the FIRST robotics program. They plan to send a group of students to USC on Jan. 9 for to learn the 2010 FIRST challenge, where teams of students must create a robot who can accomplish a task within six weeks.
The new facility has several areas for computer training in both PC and Mac. Smith said that they plan to start operations in their new location after the holidays. Students can join for free, and members of the general public can join for $15 a month. Students must fill out an application to be eligible for the free computer programs.
"This is the community technology center ... and we want to make this a resource all of Altadena can use," Smith said.
NEY is funded by grants from the U.S. Dept. of Justice, Boeing, Lockheed, NASA, JPL, and the Flintridge Foundation.
