Contact:
Joe Plotkin
NYCwireless
212.982.9800 x9797

Marcia Rowe-Riddick
Executive Director, CDSC
718.398.2050 x8401

Free Wireless Internet For Brooklyn’s Underserved Children

Wi-Fi Hotspot launch set for 11:00 AM on Friday, July 31, 2009

BROOKLYN, NY, July 21, 2009 — NYC’s premier free Wi-Fi installation in a low-income community park, in a groundbreaking collaboration between a neighborhood service organization, Child Development Support Corp (CDSC), and private capital, HARLOWTOWN, will be launched at 11:00 AM on Friday, July 31, 2009 at Brooklyn’s Classon Playground.

The Classon Playground Hotspot represents a stunning triumph of community action to deliver a public service essential in the 21st century: high-speed connection to the Internet, the gateway to the information economy. The 2008 Diamond Report, commissioned by New York City Council, concluded that a majority of the City’s low-income residents, including many children, remain without broadband Internet access and computer skills.

CDSC and HARLOWTOWN, in conjunction with NYCwireless and TECH MEDIA, will provide free Wi-Fi and literacy classes to an underserved Central Brooklyn community. “We felt strongly that our kids needed this now,” said CDSC Executive Director Marcia Rowe-Riddick, “We hope that this partnership may serve as a model for other organizations to bring Wi-Fi and computer literacy into their communities without waiting for government funding or support.”

The Wi-Fi HOTSPOT is at Classon Playground, on the corner of Classon and Lafayette Avenues, flanked by the 88th Precinct Stationhouse to the North, Lafayette Gardens Houses to the East, and the Community Partnership Charter School to the West.

About Child Development Support Corp

CDSC, a 501(c)(3), was created in 1969 to address the needs of low-income and underserved communities of Central Brooklyn. During the late seventies, the organization began preventive and foster care programs to counter the ravages of the drug and gun epidemics in the lives of the families it served. Today, CDSC provides a full range of social service programs for children and families in Community Boards 2, 3, 8, and 16.

About HARLOWTOWN

HARLOWTOWN is a private NGO that sponsors community projects in Brooklyn and the Bronx, as well as furnishing legal services to the needy and to not-for-profit organizations in the US and across the globe.

About NYCwireless

NYCwireless (http://www.nycwireless.net) is a non-profit organization that advocates and enables the growth of free, public wireless Internet access in New York City and surrounding areas. NYCwireless, founded in 2001, is an all-volunteer organization with many active members in the New York metropolitan area, across the United States of America, and around the world. In partnership with city parks organizations, business improvement districts and local non-profit organizations, NYCwireless has built free, public wireless Hotspots at Bryant Park, Madison Square Park, Wagner Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Jackson Square Park, Union Square Park (in partnership with commercial wireless Internet provider TowerStream), Stuyvesant Cove Park (the first fully solar powered hotspot in New York), Tompkins Square Park, Bowling Green Park, City Hall Park, the South Street Seaport, the Winter Garden, the Atrium at 60 Wall Street, Stone Street, Wall Street Park, and the Vietnam Veterans Plaza, among others. In addition, NYCwireless worked with Community Access to build free wireless networks in three NYCHA-licensed affordable housing residences. NYCwireless also served as a member of the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee.