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(Corporate
Stategies, 02/09/98)
Preparing the
next generation by Julia King
PHILADELPHIA - It
all started for Pete Doyle when the computer programmer and "spoiled
brat/suburban artist" volunteered to paint a mural on the graffiti-smeared
walls of Won's Market in one of this city's toughest and poorest neighborhoods.
Within an hour, an 8-year-old kid named Joey showed up at Won's, wanting to
help. Before long, Joey's five brothers also showed up. By midafternoon on that
October day in 1994, more than a dozen neighborhood kids had come to learn how
to paint and to help with the mural. Week after week, they kept coming
back.
Then it got
cold.
That's when Doyle, 47, moved inside to
a local day care center and began teaching the kids about art, graphic design
and eventually, computers. The kids get to keep those computers after
completing six training sessions through Doyle's nonprofit Ogontz Avenue Art
Co. (www.dougweb.com//ogontz.html).
In the past 3 1/2
years, 300 inner-city children, ages 8 to 18, have taken home refurbished PCs,
all of which were donated by individuals and corporations, including Doyle's
employer, Rollins Leasing Corp. in Wilmington, Del. And about 1,000 more
children are on a waiting list. Doyle, who works four 10-hour days per week at
Rollins, teaches the art and computer training classes on Mondays and in the
evenings at five different sites in Philadelphia. "We teach
problem-solving skills," Doyle said. "Kids are given problems that
have to do with both painting and computers. We tell them that learning to
think is a lot more important than getting a computer."
Students also
learn computing fundamentals, such as Windows and DOS operating systems.
Additionally, the children sign a contract agreeing to attend six training
sessions, to keep a notebook, and to complete all homework.
But attendance and
participation have never been problems, Doyle said. Most students are fiercely
dedicated. He recalled one evening when two children -- who had to change buses
twice to get to and from class -- were caught in some drug dealers' cross fire
on their way home. "They ducked under a car and were all right,"
Doyle recalled. "But that night, I called them to say I understood if they
didn't want to come back, but they did. Those kids came back and they got their
computer." Most of the computers the students receive are either 386- or
486-based PCs, which Doyle and other volunteers, including some information
systems co-workers at Rollins, reformat with DOS and Windows 3.1.
In fact, the
decision to send children home with the free computers was largely inspired by
his information systems colleagues at Rollins, Doyle said. "When I asked
young programmers at work how they got into computers, they all said it was at
home," Doyle said. "Their dad or someone else had brought home a
computer, and that's how they got started." Now, children in Doyle's
program who bring home computers are having a similar impact on their families,
said Gwendolyn Scott, principal at Prince Hall Elementary School, one of
Doyle's inner-city training sites. "Children work on the computers at
home, and they do their homework on them," Scott said. "And parents
tell us that not only do the kids work on the computers but that they get the
whole family involved."
Mass Appeal
Doyle's art and computer training work has had a similar impact at Rollins,
according to Doyle's boss, Ron Fijalkowski, vice president of IS. "When
you talk to Pete and you see what his commitment is, you can't help but want to
help, too," Fijalkowski said. "He has gotten other employees on my
staff to teach classes, which has [improved] the overall feeling of comradery.
He has helped them feel good about themselves," he said.
