Kansas City, MO — Today, Mayor Sly James announces the winners of the City’s Community Connections Challenge. When Google Fiber arrived in Kansas City in 2012, it agreed to provide the City with up to 300 community connections. While initially those community connections could only be used for government buildings, schools, and libraries, the City and Google Fiber recently agreed that remaining community connections could go toward non-profits providing digital inclusion and other services to the Kansas City community.
Earlier this summer, the City opened a competition in which area non-profits could apply for a free Google Fiber connection. The City held a Q&A meeting at which interested non-profits could get more information on the challenge. A committee of eight, including co-chairs Councilwoman Canady and Councilman Lucas, and members McClain Bryant, Director of Policy to the Mayor, Rick Usher, Assistant City Manager, Bob Bennett, Kansas City Chief Innovation Officer, Sarah Martin, Health Department, Carrie Coogen, Deputy Director for Public Affairs and Community Engagement at the Kansas City Public Library and Rachel Merlo, Google Fiber Community Impact Manager-Kansas City, reviewed the applications and determined that 24 local non-profits offering digital literacy training, a convenient place for residents to access the internet, or other social services qualified for a free community connection.
The winners of the competition, representing non-profits operating throughout Kansas City, are:
Footprints, Inc.
musketeers civic group
The Urban Farming Guys
Literacy KC
Rose of Sharon Church
Jewish Family Services of Greater Kansas City
Buck O’Neil Center – Negro Leagues Baseball Museum(NLBM)
Connecting For Good
The Gem Theater Cultural and Performing Arts Center
Girls on the Run Serving Greater Kansas City
Front Porch Alliance
Green Works in Kansas City
Operation Breakthrough
Twelfth Street Heritage Development Corporation
Hispanic Economic Development Corporation
Kansas City Autism Training Center Inc.
W.E.B. DuBois Learning Center
Northland Neighborhoods, Inc.
MRC Community Connections
Kansas City Care Clinic Digital Expansion
Swope Corridor Upper Room/Mary Kelly Center
Blue Valley NA, (CAN Center)
Vineyard Neighborhood Association (CAN Center)
Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council (CAN Center)
The winners will be acknowledged today during the Neighborhoods and Public Safety Committee Meeting at 10:00am on the 26th Floor of City Hall.
