Community members began discussing how to use the community benefit portion of UC2B project funds at a meeting Saturday at Salem Baptist Church.
The UC2B project aims to bring high-speed fiber-optic Internet to areas in Urbana, Champaign and Savoy that have been chronically underserved by existing Internet infrastructure.
The policy board for the project agreed to dedicate a portion of its revenue to a fund that would “be dedicated to overcoming the digital divide,” according to the board’s resolution. The board plans to allocate between 2 and 5 percent of the annual revenue to the fund. Community members must now decide how they want to use the money to meet that goal.
Saturday morning’s meeting was “the first of many meetings” to decide what to do with the money, said Abdul Alkalimat, professor of African American Studies and UC2B policy board member.
The Rev. Zernial Bogan of the Salem Baptist Church said the meeting was fit for the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
Get The Daily Illini in your inbox!
“There’s always something you can do to help the community, and that’s what Martin Luther King expressed,” Bogan said.
Alkalimat noted the importance of the community benefit fund before opening the floor for suggestions.
“This is a rare opportunity for us to think about what we want to do for our community,” he said.
Meeting attendees presented several ideas for how to spend the fund. Some suggested purchasing new computers for resident use and training residents to use computers.
Artice James, president of the Champaign chapter of the National Council of African-American Men, suggested using the funds to provide job training for the installation of fiber optic material to area homes. James said he hoped many of these jobs will employ minority residents.
Alkalimat also commented on the issue of creating permanent jobs for Champaign-Urbana residents. He said he could see potential for creating a group similar to Best Buy’s Geek Squad.
“Everybody knows when you have a computer, you are going to have problems,” he said. “You don’t know everything.”
UC2B policy board members plan to hold more community meetings, but they have not yet set a date for the next gathering.
Janelle can be reached at [email protected].
