Microsoft lends a hand on Clay Street

taken from the Capital

Clay Street computer lab gets another boost from Microsoft
By RYAN JUSTIN FOX Staff Writer
Published 07/29/09
The atmosphere at the Clay Street Computer Learning Center in Annapolis is often bleak.

Joshua McKerrow – The Capital Kids online at the Clay Street Computer Learning Center. The lab recently received new top-of-the-line computers thanks to a $75,000 gift from Microsoft, which helped establish the lab a decade ago.

Mark Thomas, the lab’s program director, said he often has to shut the window shades because of the drug dealing and loud disturbances on the street outside the tiny storefront computer lab, which sits between Calvert and West Washington streets.

But for many area kids, the lab has unlocked the door to unlimited potential for success in an otherwise pessimistic community. This spring, the lab’s first alumnus graduated from college.

The lab, which opened thanks to a grant from the Unlimited Potential program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 1999, recently received another long-term investment from Microsoft.

The company has donated $75,000 to buy eight new Hewlett-Packard Pavilion computers with flat-screen monitors.

Microsoft executives, state officials and community leaders stopped by the tiny computer lab Monday morning to get a firsthand look at the center’s success.

“It’s not really just a computer lab,” said the center’s founder, Mary Wolf. “It’s a safe haven. It’s a home away from home. Technology puts (lab participants) on equal footing with any other child.”

For 10 years now, the Clay Street Learning Center has been an oasis of opportunity even as the surrounding neighborhood seemingly crumbles around it.

“The opportunities afforded to me (because of the lab) were just tremendous,” said College Creek Terrace native Tim Boston, 22, a former assistant program director who graduated from Bowie State University in May.

Boston said he was walking by the lab several years ago and noticed all the computers when the door swung open. Curious, he stepped inside. His life has not been the same since, he said.

“It was such a big thing to have a computer back then,” Boston said. “The (lab) teaches you life skills. It’s nurturing.”

The lab is open to anybody from the neighborhood, Wolf said. During the fall, young people ranging from preschoolers to teenagers stop by the lab to do homework and computer activities in an environment conducive to constructive activity.

Senior citizens in the neighborhood often come in the center early in the morning to surf the Web, the lab’s staff said.

Miguel Powell, 8, said he and his 10-year-old sister, Dejamani, signed up for summer camp at the center because they would have nothing else to do.

Ty Curtis, a program assistant with the lab who grew up near the Columbia Heights neighborhood in Washington, D.C., said Wolf and the computer lab helped save his life. He is set to graduate from Southern University next year with a degree in computer science.

The center has received more than $150,000 in grants and software donations since it opened a decade ago. It has also received recognition and citations from County Executive John R. Leopold and Gov. Martin O’Malley.

U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Baltimore County, presented the center with a congressional citation Monday.

Wolf said she eventually wants to develop a program that would allow some of the center’s students to land technology jobs with the state.

“I always say Clay Street is just one block from Main Street,” Wolf said. “We want people to know it’s worth investing in Clay Street.”

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Posted in September 2007