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Ryan Wheaton & Brian Levesque explain what they¹re doing for the people of Aroostook County

In 25 words or less, Ryan, what is the program that you¹re working with?
Ryan Wheaton: It¹s an outreach program to help [the people of ] Aroostook, [the] State of Maine, [to have] better knowledge about computers; providing computer training.
Brian Levesque: Project GO@LS. It stands for Go On-line At Libraries and Schools.

Who sponsors Project GO@LS?
BRIAN It¹s an Americorps program, and also it is a governor¹s initiative that he brought on to kind of help bridge the digital divide within Maine.

I¹ve heard of Americorps, seen some vehicles with the 'A' logo in a circle; can you explain what Americorps does?
BRIAN It¹s a volunteer program in which to better communities across the United States.

Is it like the Vista volunteer program which was modeled after the Peace Corps?
BRIAN Vista is part of the Americorps program. There are different programs under it. Project Goals is one them, Vista is another one, and so on.

How long has Project GOALS been in existence, nationally?
BRIAN I don¹t know nationally, but here in Maine since September of 1999.

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How did you get involved in this, Brian?
BRIAN I went to work one day, I work at the public library here in town, in Caribou. Diane Dubois the librarian there says, ³I have something for you, come take a look at it.² And she told me all this information about training people in bridging the digital divide, and I called up and got the job.

How did you get involved in this, Ryan; what town are you from?
RYAN I¹m from Guilford, Maine, which is down towards southern Maine. I got involved in it through the site supervisor; [she] was actually one of my accounting tutors at the university, and she was telling me about the program. What I major in is management information systems; it was right up my alley.

Who is eligible to become a GO@LS volunteer?
RYAN (to Brian) The program is for after high school, correct?

BRIAN Correct. Anybody aged 17 and older can do this. Any age.

Any age? 50?
BRIAN 50! Yes!

Okay. The digital divide. Brian you¹ve used that term; do you want to define it?
BRIAN In communities across the United States you have low income families and you have high income families. Typically, the high income families are the ones that have access to the Internet at home and anywhere else, whether it be laptops and that type of thing; they can connect all over the place, versus the low income families that don¹t have access at all. They could at the library, but they don¹t typically have it at home and they¹re not sure about the Internet. They don¹t know what it has to offer. We¹re trying to take that [gap] and bridge it, to connect it, the low income with the high income family so they¹ll all learn the Internet.

And what exactly are you two doing to bridge this digital divide?
RYAN Visiting schools and libraries throughout the County. Once we check out the technology available to those schools and libraries, then we will pick out five schools and libraries that would be best for our program, and then ask those schools and libraries to look around and get two volunteers and have them trained to offer free Internet and e-mail training to the public.

What about the hardware and the software? Is there funding to help people get their own computers at home?
RYAN No, there¹s not.

So this is strictly a training program.
RYAN Training, yes, to get them better knowledge, so everybody knows how to use the Internet. [It¹s] senior citizens that don¹t know how to use it versus students in middle school or high school that do; help bridge that also.

Let¹s say I hear about the program ­ how do I become involvement in this program?
BRIAN You would either call me at the public library here in Caribou, or you can call Ryan at the Learning Center on Bennett Drive here in Caribou and make an appointment. That¹s all you have to do. This is not aimed directly at people who don¹t know how to use the Internet. It can be people that want to freshen up on skills, and depending on where they are, we have a curriculum guide that we can start, depending on their knowledge, and start off from there to teach them.

So I can be at any skill level using computers.
BRIAN Yes.

Is it only in Caribou? You¹ve only mentioned someone contacting you at the library and Ryan at the Learning Center.
BRIAN This is a three-year program, and during the first year, which we¹re working on right now, we picked five sites surrounding Caribou ­ that¹s Fort Kent, Van Buren, Ashland, Hodgdon, Limestone. And in September we¹ll be starting five new sites.

You¹re operating out of Caribou, but these sites are being established around The County where people can go to the school or the library and learn how to use computers?
BRIAN Correct.

Do they have to contact you in Caribou, or can they go to their local . . . ?
BRIAN No, no, we recruit volunteers in each of these satellite sites and from there, they are the ones that do the training. Let¹s say we have a volunteer in Ashland recruited; they would see that person in Ashland and get trained from that person.

Do you have volunteers already set up in these sites?
BRIAN No, we don¹t. We are still looking for volunteers. We¹ll be expanding in the five new sites come September, and we will be looking for volunteers for those sites still, and we¹ll be in the coming weeks visiting those sites and seeing who
we¹re going to pick.

Do you know what the next communities are going to be, which ones will be included in the next level of expansion?
BRIAN I have a list. We just wrote down on a piece of paper some places we¹d like to visit and see what they have for technology, and that¹s Presque Isle, Easton, Washburn, Limestone, Madawaska, Hainesville, Houlton, Sherman Mills, and also Sherman, Island Falls, Oakfield, St. Agatha, the Allagash, and Fort Fairfield.

Schools, or libraries, or both?
BRIAN Well, we¹re looking for one or the other.

You¹re looking for one center in each town?
BRIAN Right, right.
RYAN After we¹ve visited [those] sites, we¹ll pick out five of them and ask them to come onto the program.

You¹re going to add five more sites every year over a three-year period, so we¹ll end up with 15 sites around The County?
BRIAN Correct. The only reason Caribou was part of this first year was because our office is located here in Caribou, and I made myself available at the library and Ryan made himself available at the Learning Center. It¹s kind of included as number six, but there are five satellite sites that we pick.

There must be other centers in addition to this one in Caribou.
BRIAN Yes, there¹s a center in Lincoln, in Bangor, in Lewiston, Topsham, and Portland. Those are what¹s called the hub sites and from there, each hub site picks five satellite sites around that area for the first year.
RYAN These hub sites will stay for three years, these hub sites will not change, but the satellite sites will. Anybody with any type of computer knowledge can become increased in training. Our program is developed to help people who are in need of just learning a little bit more about computers and how to use them in general before they even start on the Internet.
BRIAN It¹s pretty welcomed by seniors.

High school seniors?
BRIAN No, no, senior citizens. They¹re really rambunctious to learn. It¹s amazing, because, number one, it¹s here to stay. Technology and everything is here to stay. A lot of these seniors have friends and relatives all over the world. There was some person I trained, she had her daughter living in Stockholm, Sweden, and she can communicate back and forth without paying for a phone bill. She can just come in the public library and e-mail her. So that was a great thing. There¹s another person that came in, and she was from Korea, and she wants to read the newspaper from back home. ³Can I get this newspaper?² and I said, ³Yeah; let me take a look.² I found it, it was all in Korean, and I couldn¹t understand it, but she was reading right along. So, it¹s a great thing for seniors or anybody to get a good cultural learning experience. You can learn another language!
RYAN I think that maybe we hope that when we train a person, then they¹ll show their friends, you know what I mean?
BRIAN Sure, sure. It¹s like a domino effect, in which you train one person, and she goes back to her friends and says, you know, I¹ve got this training, this is great, this is wonderful, maybe you should try it, maybe you should learn it. It just keeps going.

Do you know how many people have contacted you, or gone through this training since September?
BRIAN To tell you the truth, I lost count. I lost count! There is a goal to reach. Within each site, there¹s a goal to reach at least 2500 people per year.

In The County?
BRIAN In The County, to be trained. It¹s kind of a lot, but give or take 1,000, but I think we¹re well on that way, because you know we have these other sites. It¹s because it¹s a Governor¹s initiative, and he wants numbers and that type of thing. So, that¹s our goal.

Ryan, what made you want to do this?
RYAN I think the biggest thing is, I wanted to be able to do a community outreach program to serve the community, and also to serve our country without having to join the army or military services. I feel that it¹s important to help out our citizens, and this is a way that I could provide my knowledge and expertise to help branch out and help our community without having to go into military services or committing myself to, like, one year away, you know. I can stay right in my county and serve.

And what is it that made you interested in joining the GO@LS program, Brian?
BRIAN To give a learning to the seniors, more or less. I feel it¹s probably the younger generation in which we know technology a little bit better than seniors, to relay that information to them. That¹s the biggest concern.

If someone wants to contact you in Caribou, how do they do that?
BRIAN Contact me at the Caribou Public Library, 493-4214.

And they ask for Brian Levesque?
BRIAN They can either ask for me, or they can just tell the person that picks up the phone that they¹d like to schedule an Internet training and they will write down the time that they want.

So, I imagine the restriction would be when the library is open.
BRIAN Correct.

Okay, what about if the training site is in a school? The times there must be more flexible.
BRIAN Yes, yes, very flexible. At the Learning Center we can do trainings in the evening.

Weekends? Do you do weekends?
BRIAN Yes, we could, we could.

How long does the training take? Is it one session?
BRIAN Depending on your experience, your first class is going to be roughly an hour long. Like I said, depending on your experience you¹ll have more classes. It can go up to twelve classes if you really really don¹t know what you¹re doing on computers, and you don¹t know how to use a mouse, you don¹t know how to use a keyboard, it can take up to twelve lessons. But I say the average that I¹ve done is about three lessons, of about an hour apiece, and that person is ready to surf the ¹net.

And then they can come back to the library and use the computer on their own?
BRIAN Right. They have computers readily available for the public to use.
RYAN We should mention the volunteers. We¹ll be heavily recruiting and looking for people who want to be able to serve some community service time, and also in return if they serve a certain amount of hours they can receive a college award, to help them out if they want to take classes at school to help further their education or to help pay off student loans.

Ryan, would you explain what this education reward is. If someone in Washburn wants to volunteer to help teach people how to use a computer they¹ll be paid?
RYAN They commit a total of 450 hours to the program over the course of one year. They will receive $1,181 towards an educational award, which is good for seven years, so they can use it any time between now and seven years, or to even pay back student loans.

The money must be used for education?
RYAN Educational purposes only, right.

In a way, that¹s not 100% volunteering, if you¹re getting money for doing it.
RYAN It¹s more like a thank you for committing your time and helping us out. I think we can have up to 10 volunteers in a community.

Are you employees or volunteers?
BRIAN No, we are volunteers, that¹s what we¹re called, but we¹re committed to 1700 hours, so we¹re the ones that are in charge of setting up the sites and getting the volunteers, and that kind of thing.

1700 hours over a three year period?
BRIAN Over a one year.

So you do this for the year, and then there¹ll be different people next year?
BRIAN Correct.
RYAN We¹ll continue.
BRIAN You can only do two years max in this program, and we¹re going to be doing a second year and then the third year is going to be open.
RYAN We get a living stipend, and then we also get an educational reward.

Okay, I¹m picturing Peace Corps volunteers overseas, receiving some living expenses and a financial incentive. And it¹s like Vista Volunteers. So you¹ll get a bigger incentive at the end.
BRIAN We work more!
RYAN We work full time. We get a $4,725 educational reward, since we commit 1700 hours.

If you'd like to read more of this interview pick up your copy of Aroostook Magazine July's issue at a newsstand near you. It's available at over 210 outlets throughout Aroostook County.