Our Fall Plans and Highlighted Heroes 🌟
Fulfilling our summer campaign promises and planning our upcoming event, Bridging Tech from Home: 2021 Virtual Charity Gala!
To our dedicated community:
Thank you so much for your overwhelming support toward our mission of bridging the digital divide. This summer, thanks to your contributions, our Bridging Tech team was able to fulfill our promises and begin transforming our students’ lives within both Navajo Nation and our shelter partners across the country. We are all incredibly moved and inspired by your generosity.
Now, with back-to-school season upon us, it becomes even more important to join together as a community and advocate for educational equity. We must amplify the voices of under-resourced students and respond to their needs, which are often linked to technology access. In this way, we can improve our world one step at a time.
This month was National Wellness Month, so we hope that you are spending time focusing on your happiness and fulfillment. If it helps, we are more than happy to collaborate with you to give back to your community. With your support, we will continue growing and serving as many students affected by homelessness as possible.
Thank you for striving toward social justice,
Isabel Wang
Co-Founder, The Bridging Tech Charitable Fund
Support Bridging Tech with a Modern Twist
We have partnered with Momentum to provide an exciting new way for you to support our cause. Now, with our new donation platform, you can give on a recurring schedule, based on the number of educational programming hours we have been able to provide to our students in a given month. Your level of support will directly reflect our impact in transforming under-resourced students’ lives. We ask that you pledge a recurring donation to help our organization grow.
Head to this link to give back today.
Spotlight: Efforts to Provide for Afghan Refugees
Our team extends our support to the thousands of Afghan refugees starting new lives in foreign cultures. We commend all refugee centers, resettlement agencies, and community organizations that are helping these families and individuals through such a stressful time in their lives.
Bridging Tech supports human rights, and we believe that all students should have equitable educational opportunities. In collaboration with our academic partner, Global Impact Initiative, we intend to reach out to refugee centers and offer our free, long-term Mentorship Program to students affected by this crisis.
If you would like to serve as a Mentor to our students, then please fill out our Mentorship Sign-Up Form here. We appreciate your help!
An excerpt from Ted Hesson’s piece on the Afghan refugee crisis, explaining why immediate help is needed:
“U.S. refugee resettlement organizations typically receive at least two weeks' notice from the U.S. government or United Nations to prepare for new arrivals, but the hectic evacuation has cut that timeline to days or hours.
The hurried pace forced one refugee group in Texas to turn to emergency housing and petition for vacant Airbnb rental units while others have scrambled to find mattresses and supplies for families.”
Fulfilling Our Summer Campaign Promises 💻
Thanks to your incredible support, our Bridging Tech Summer Give Back Campaign featuring our partner, Navajo Nation, was a great success! Our team can now provide technology access for all students affected by homelessness in Navajo Nation, along with students at our shelter partners.
We are preparing and shipping 300 laptops for learning to completely fill the device need amongst students affected by homelessness in Navajo Nation.
We are preparing and shipping 100 additional laptops for learning to students affected by homelessness at our shelter partners across the country.
We are providing hotspots with one year of free 4G LTE unlimited Internet access to Navajo Nation students for their school work.
As always, we offer free mentorship, tutoring, and educational opportunities to all of our students.
We are creating a technology support system to help our students and families learn how to use and fix their devices when needed.
During our growing summer campaign, we began scaling up our partnership with Coalition for the Homeless in New York City. Together, and thanks to your ongoing support, we are providing an additional 600 students in New York City with technology access and educational opportunities. We are now preparing for our our next phase of giving over 1600 devices, so that all students affected by homelessness in New York City will receive permanent laptops for learning.
This issue of technology access is crucial to children’s education, and your support this summer has helped ensure an equitable education for our students. The prevalence of technology in education is growing, and we motivate you to continue learning about how we can bridge the digital divide together.
Check out this article by The Editorial Board at The New York Times: “The School Kids Are Not Alright”
Coming Soon to a Device Near You… 😉
Stay tuned for more information about our Bridging Tech from Home: 2021 Virtual Charity Gala! Our team has been hard at work making sure we can meet you online, celebrate our accomplishments together, and share what we have learned about the digital divide at our special event. Our hope is that our charity gala becomes an annual tradition. Invitations will be sent out soon, and we hope to see you there!
Our Request to You: If you have any items that you would like to contribute to our auction, such as an evening dinner, rejuvenating spa day, tickets to a show, weekend getaway, or creative gift to a supporter’s local schools, please let us know at giveback@bridgingtech.org! Every donated package will bring us one step closer to bridging the digital divide for students affected by homelessness.
Highlighted Heroes: 2021 National Barbie® Doll Virtual Collectors Convention
Our team is incredibly grateful to our partner, 2021 National Barbie® Doll Virtual Collectors Convention, for selecting Bridging Tech as their children’s charity of choice for their annual National Barbie® Doll Collectors Convention, themed #BarbieInspires. By sharing our cause and the importance of bridging the digital divide with their supporters, we received donations totaling over $40,000 in one weekend alone!
This amazing outpouring of support highlights the need to spread awareness of the digital divide in order to create the greatest impact and empower our students through their educational journeys. It was an honor to be selected and collaborate with their team!
Get Involved
Do you want to join the cause? ❤️
If you believe in what we advocate for and want to join our team, please consider applying. We always appreciate extra help at Bridging Tech, so we are currently recruiting core team volunteers who can dedicate at least 10 hours weekly for the next year. If you or someone you know are interested in getting involved on a greater level, let’s work together to magnify our impact!
You can become a volunteer or donate. ✨
Thank you for showing support by pledging your time. We will reach out to you when there are opportunities to volunteer by hosting technology donation drives, mentoring our students, or helping out our regional teams in a city near you.
As always, help out by donating your old devices! 💻
With the help of our refurbishing partner, all information from your devices will be wiped, and the devices will then be fixed so that we can provide refurbished devices to students affected by homelessness. Beyond personal devices, check to see if your company has extra devices, and motivate IT and Philanthropy teams to donate hardware to Bridging Tech. Our initiatives promote both educational equity and environmental sustainability!
Finally, become a Digital Divide Ambassador. 🎖️
Share this newsletter with ten of your friends, and tell us about you and your community to become a Digital Divide Ambassador at Bridging Tech! Email us at newsletter@bridgingtech.org.