The day starts slowly at the Creighton@ Bryant Community Technology Center where a young woman hoping to grab a little computer time to e-mail her mother on the West Coast quietly seats herself across the room from retirees taking a class on how to use the internet.

About a dozen of the 20 work stations in the center’s fledgling computer lab in the lower level of the Bryant Resource Center on Omaha’s North Side are idle. The adjoining office is Spartan-like, furnished mostly by a desk, an uncooperative fax machine and a work table where Fr. Tom Manahan, SJ, a driving force behind the center, and Patrice Gunter, the site manager, review enrollment sheets and devise plans to fill the remaining seats.

“One of the challenges is that people who need training are already busy. So you’re trying to get into their daily routines, and that’s hard. After work they’re home with the kids, and it’s difficult to make time. Some have no child care, others no transportation. It’s hard,” says Fr.Manahan, assistant to the dean for mission in the College of Business Administration at Creighton University and associate pastor at St. Benedict the Moor Parish adjacent to the center.

“One person wanted to come the other day but had no transportation. I almost wanted to say I’ll come pick you up. But you can’t do that for everybody,” says Gunter, a university employee hired exclusively to manage the site and help build the community and financial support necessary to keep it afloat.

Fr. Tom Manahan, SJ and Patrice Gunter, site manager for the Creighton@Bryant Community Technology Center, review class enrollment figures.

Planning for the technology center began in summer 2001 after Operation Head Start vacated its offices in the building and, in the process, created a community void. At the request of the center’s board, Creighton agreed to explore ways it might become more involved in the community. Ultimately, the university agreed to be a partner in a program to help bridge the digital divide and enhance the quality of life in the predominantly African American community north of the campus and east of 72nd street.

Soon after, the Applied Information Management Institute (AIM) also agreed to join the partnership by providing a $68,500 federal Department of Education-backed grant to install the 20 computer stations and additional money for training. A year later, the Bryant Community Technology Center opened with additional support from the Wisconsin Province and two local foundations.

“AIM essentially agreed to help us get things started but left it up to the university and the Bryant board to sustain the training program idea and keep it moving along,” says Fr. Manahan. “Our challenge is to help build a university and community network to keep the place going.”

Gunter, who was born, raised, and resides in North Omaha, dreams of taking the concept a step farther. She envisions the technology center evolving into a multi-faceted community center with child care facilities, heath-related programs, perhaps even a transportation service. But before she can pave the highway to such a future, she must build a roadbed beginning with a plan to develop an ongoing source of additional trainers.

Tina Ventry owns and operates At Your Service, a company under contract with AIM to provide the first year of training and simultaneously teach Creighton student and staff volunteers to be among the next generation of teacher-trainers.

Another CU student volunteer, Sarah Molseed (left), helps a high school student tackle a William Shakespeare play.

The technology center is important to the area because computer access is very limited here. There’s a fear of technology among many, even the kids and our teens. If we can combine our sense of community with technology education and get the people involved, we’re not only going to build selfestee1m, we will add personal value to a lot of lives,”Ventry says.

“So much of it is overcoming people’s fears. It’s almost like helping someone learn how to swim. If they trust you, and you don’t go too fast, they’ll try different things,” Fr.Manahan says.

“And that’s what I’ve seen with the instructors. They’re able to set the right pace,” adds Gunter, “telling and showing and moving ahead.”

Joanna Faison, a 72-yearold retiree, says class at the center is changing her life. “I feel more connected to the world. For a retired person, that’s important because you’re not so isolated.”

Partially disabled by a workplace accident, 57-yearold Duane Martin says the center “helps keep me abreast mentally, physically, and emotionally. It helps keep me focused on life.”

Creighton University volunteer, Liz Galm (above), teaches a group of “Cyber Kids“ at an after-school computer class.

After the morning classes conclude, Gunter spends some time making phone calls and personal contacts – early steps toward building the network of support necessary if there’s to be life after first-year-funding. By mid-afternoon, however, she’s back at Bryant getting ready for the younger crowd.

Things start off slowly. Sarah Molseed, a Creighton University student volunteer, tutors a high school student in English literature.Making some students available for tutoring is a modest and informal first step toward broadening the center’s general appeal.

“Coming here for one thing opens up other needs, especially with the Cyber Kids. You find out if people have reading issues, writing issues,” says Fr.Manahan. Tutoring is something the Creighton students are familiar with, and they want to help in any way they can. It’s an example of how you create relationships.”

The Anna Tyler Waite Leadership Scholars Program provides most of the student volunteers. The four-year program offers undergraduate students in the College of Business Administration the opportunity to study leadership and practice being leaders. The third year is a service component under the direction of Beverly Kracher, a business college professor.

She has the highest praise for the center, Gunter, and especially for Fr.Manahan and his commitment to organizing technology center support.

A morning class of adult residents and retirees learns the basics of e-mail communication and how to surf the internet.

“Before the center opened and throughout the summer, he was down there every day in every way,” she says. “He was instrumental in getting faculty interested and inviting others to get involved.”

By 4:20 p.m., the first of the afternoon Cyber Kids arrive. They clamber around frantically shedding their coats and entering their names on a sign-in sheet that allows them computer access. They arrive before their instructor and energetically seek help from anyone who can help them boot up a computer. Soon Liz Galm, another Creighton volunteer, joins instructor Vickie Young. Several more Cyber Kids arrive – more than anticipated. Apparently, the kids talked up the program at school and invited some of their classmates to join them.

Stephen Ventry (right) receives a lesson in computer maintenance from Clarence Holiday.

In short order, they are familiarizing themselves with their computer keyboards using a program that involves an animated frog on the monitor screen where different letters sit on the tips of lily pads. Press the corresponding letter on the keyboard and the frog’s tongue shoots forth and gobbles up the letter, prompting satisfied grins and giggles of delight from the children.

On the other side of the lab, older Cyber Kids are putting the finishing touches on stories they’re writing about a virtual trip they took around the world, seeing and discovering things about different peoples and cultures. After their personal tales are edited in a word processing program, they will design a newsletter account of their trips.

Patrice Gunter, site manager, signs in a group of “Cyber Kids“ for class.

Gunter stands in the doorway between the outer office and the computer lab. Her eyes dance back and forth between the student being tutored and the young kids engaged in the excitement of diving headlong into computer education and cyberspace. Unsure of where future resources will come from to keep this section of the information superhighway open, Gunter allows herself a moment of fulfillment.

“See,” she says. “That dream I was talking about is beginning to come true.”