Intermountain Physical and Cultural Geography

Our four communities--Big Bend, Montgomery Creek, Round Mountain, and Oak Run--are predominately low-income, with approximately 70% of the students in our three tiny school districts eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. We have about 1900 residents, with the 2000 Census figures showing a loss of almost 40% of the area's population since 1990. Two factors have caused this: first, the devastating impact of 1992's Fountain Fire, in which more than 300 homes-more than half the homes in Round Mountain and Montgomery Creek-were lost. Our families were also severely affected by the changes in the timber products industry during the past decade, with much of the local employment base disappearing. Our service area includes several small Rancherias; approximately 10% of our local population-- and about 30% of the local school enrollment--is Native American. Acorn operates the Acorn Café, the only place to eat within a 25 mile radius. The café, in addition to providing job training opportunities and housing most of our program activities, serves as a gathering place for much of the community. It is the center for the re-building efforts that have slowly evolved since the Fire. The Café also houses our region's only computer center: three Internet-linked computers and printer, provided in mid- 2000 by the Shasta Private Industry Council, with on-going operations funded by the Community Technology Foundation from August 2000-July 2002. Our Board of Directors all live in our community, with one exception, and are all intimately involved in the work of Acorn. Staff also lives here, and are consumers of and/or participants in at least one of Acorn's programs.

Use of the Acorn's computers is constant, by a wide range of community members. There are no other computers available for public use in our area, except for 3 hours per week when a group of senior residents meets at the Round Mountain Community Center. The volunteer who ran that program has had to stop due to health problems.
Students do not have Internet access at the area's main K-8 school district, have limited computer access in general, and receive absolutely no computer instruction. There is no teacher qualified to act as a technology specialist. Almost one-quarter of students who could be enrolled in the district are instead home-schooled, and many of these depend on Acorn for computer access, coming not only during the afterschool program, but throughout the day.
All three Acorn computers are in constant use during the afterschool program, which serves an average of 30 children per day, with an attendee pool of about 80. We estimate that maybe 1/5th of these children may have computer access at home. Recently we have implemented a computer learning curriculum suggested by Modoc Charter School, and also require each child to spend 5 minutes using computer keyboarding software during their log-on time. In addition to the afterschool program, we offer drop-in classes for adults two days per week (1.5 hours each), which are well-attended, primarily by people over 55. Otherwise the computers are available for free use during the Café's regular hours. While most of the use is by residents, we also get tourists who are delighted to find Internet access "in the middle of nowhere."

Physical geography