Incourage board chair Kristopher Gasch and Mary Ann Lippert, Wood County, spoke with Host James Malouf during our November WFHR Morning Magazine segment about our community’s digital divide and how we can be a part of helping to create an equitable digital environment for rural Wood County through a unique grant opportunity.
Incourage history: With support from the John S. and James L Knight Foundation, Incourage commissioned a project to study our community’s digital divide and its associated inequalities that information technology can be used to resolve. Please take some time to review the 2012 publication: Bridging the Digital Divide to improve life in Central Wisconsin.
Current grant opportunity: Through a partnership with Bug Tussel Wireless, Wood County is seeking letters of support to apply for the Wisconsin PSC Broadband Expansion Grant FY21. If awarded, these grant dollars will help bring broadband wireless internet to unserved and underserved communities of Wood County, including the Pittsville School District and area rural towns. The challenges our rural communities experience accessing wireless internet have always existed. The digital divide has become more evident by the Covid-19 pandemic and even more challenging for students and educators, farmers, health care providers and patients, employees, etc. Grant awards rely heavily on public support. Wood County is asking for residents, businesses, and organizations to write letters of support and submit them by November 16th, 2020 to: [email protected]. Listen in to learn more.
