Technology Brings Ohio Community Together

Seniors and youth in Crooksville, Ohio, continue to benefit from programs that were partially funded by a W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Managing Information With Rural America (MIRA) grant. 

A focus of MIRA was to help rural people use technology (electronic communications and information systems) as a tool to meet their current and future challenges. This southern Ohio town’s residents continue to benefit from five programs that were partially funded by MIRA grants says its mayor, Douglas Cannon. 

One of those projects was “Advancing Seniors’ Computer Knowledge,” or A.S.C.K., in which a computer center was installed in the town’s Senior Citizens’ Center. Local students volunteered their time to tutor seniors on the equipment. After the MIRA funding ended, the Center continued the computer center and continues to subscribe to Internet access so all in this small rural community can have access to the Internet.

The MIRA grant also helped the town secure a local government cable channel that continues to be a great service to the community, says Cannon. A key lesson learned by the town through the MIRA program was to involve residents of all ages, including youth. Mayor Cannon notes that the youth have been invited to use the cable channel, and are currently producing their own programs utilizing the MIRA-funded computer center with its film editing capability. “It involves them in the community and gives them something productive to do,” says Cannon. 

For more information, contact Canon at mayor@crooksville.com.