Community

Verizon Donates $100,000 to David E. Glover Tech Center

Published

5 years ago

March 19, 2020

An East Oakland nonprofit launched by late activist David E. Glover was awarded a $100,000 grant from Verizon to continue youth and adult technology classes for low-income residents.

Glover, originally from St. Louis, Missouri, began working for the Citizens Committee for Urban Renewal (OCCUR), a nonprofit organization focused on creating opportunities for marginalized communities, after a short stay at the Bay Area Urban League. Glover climbed the ranks of the organization, becoming executive director, and in 1997, he launched Eastmont Computing Center, as a space to teach basic computer literacy skills. In his honor, the center was renamed to the David E. Glover Emerging Technology Center (DEGETC) after his 2013 passing.

The former executive director of the center, Sondra Alexander, who served the organization for 40 years until her retirement in December, and was responsible for the renaming of the organization, said she couldn’t be more excited for the organization. “This grant will enable OCCUR to continue their great work. OCCUR was a force that helped the community and trained many Oakland residents.”

In the 70s, Alexander began working for OCCUR as an assistant to Executive Director of OCCUR, Paul Cobb, and eventually assumed his position. According to Alexander, OCCUR was supported by the City of Oakland’s Community Development Block Grant Fund, the State of California and corporations from “Clorox to Kaiser.”

“We had a lot of support, and Paul and David were quite a team. They were ahead of their time,” said Alexander who worked on 50 projects throughout her tenure. “Paul and David would go down fighting until the end, working for them was more than I imagined. We got a lot done for Oakland residents.”

Olivia Cueva, Director of DEGETC, and OCCUR started her media career as a journalist with Youth Radio and found her spark for applied technology opportunities while participating in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, where she created a pressure-sensitive mat that sent her family text messages when her 93-year-old grandfather stood up.

“I knew I didn’t want to work in the big tech industry,” Cueva said, “I came on as a creative consultant to help them strengthen the programs, expand their programming, get more students in there, and also rebrand and redesign.”

Cueva credits the center’s success to the support of her staff, including Jorge Flores, office manager and Spanish-language Computer Basics Instructor who has been with the center since it opened and was hired by Glover himself.

A new project, Future Founders, led by Camila Ramos, focuses on supporting entrepreneurship by training young students to make money with their skills. In partnership with Met West High School, and through the support of Glover’s son, (insert son’s name here,)the center negotiated a three-month paid contract with the Oakland A’s Technology Team, where students designed virtual prototypes for possible youth fan engagements.

Oakland student, Hesten Parrish, only 11-years-old when he attended his first Hack-a-thon at the center, created an app to stimulate teacher-student communication, received seed funding by age 14, and spoke at Google’s 2020 Black History Month event. He’s only 15.

The grant money will be used to support afterschool programs that teach graphic design, 3-D printing, coding, and augmented reality.

Laura Richardson and Carla Thomas

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of July 2- 8, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 2 – 8, 2025

Published

3 days ago

July 7, 2025

Oakland Post

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Trump Set to Sign Largest Cut to Medicaid After a Marathon Protest Speech by Leader Jeffries

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S.

Published

6 days ago

July 3, 2025

Oakland Post

By Lauren Burke

By a vote of 218 to 214, the GOP-controlled U.S. House passed President Trump’s massive budget and spending bill that will add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S. With $175 billion allocated in spending for immigration enforcement, the money for more police officers eclipsed the 2026 budget for the U.S. Marines, which is $57 billion. Almost all of the policy focus from the Trump Administration has focused on deporting immigrants of color from Mexico and Haiti.

The vote occurred as members were pressed to complete their work before the arbitrary deadline of the July 4 holiday set by President Trump. It also occurred after Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries took the House floor for over 8 hours in protest. Leader Jeffries broke the record in the U.S. House for the longest floor speech in history on the House floor. The Senate passed the bill days before and was tied at 50-50, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski saying that, “my hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.” There were no changes made to the Senate bill by the House. A series of overnight phone calls to Republicans voting against, not changes, was what won over enough Republicans to pass the legislation, even though it adds trillions to the debt. The Trump spending bill also cuts money to Pell grants.

“The Big Ugly Bill steals food out of the hands of starving children, steals medicine from the cabinets of cancer patients, and equips ICE with more funding and more weapons of war than the United States Marine Corps. Is there any question of who those agents will be going to war for, or who they will be going to war against? Beyond these sadistic provisions, Republicans just voted nearly unanimously to close urban and rural hospitals, cripple the child tax credit, and to top it all off, add $3.3 trillion to the ticking time bomb that is the federal deficit – all from a party that embarrassingly pretends to stand for fiscal responsibility and lowering costs,” wrote Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in a statement on July 3.

“The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 17 million people will lose their health insurance, including over 322,000 Virginians. It will make college less affordable. Three million people will lose access to food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And up to 16 million students could lose access to free school meals. The Republican bill does all of this to fund tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations,” wrote Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a statement. The bill’s passage has prompted Democrats to start thinking about 2026 and the next election cycle. With the margins of victory in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate being so narrow, many are convinced that the balance of power and the question of millions being able to enjoy health care come down to only several thousand votes in congressional elections. But currently, Republicans controlled by the MAGA movement control all three branches of government. That reality was never made more stark and more clear than the last seven days of activity in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.