Not all Fort Mill residents are online. But more are now, one tablet at a time.

Sheyla Rivera has a 4-year-old, a 2-month-old and another baby on the way. Money is tight. So Monday afternoon wasn’t about downloading shows or social media.

Rivera has bigger plans for her new tablet.

“It’ll probably help me find a job and better pay,” said the Fort Mill resident who moved here in March after time in the military. “Right now we can’t afford Wi-Fi.”

Shandrieka Starr has three children ages 5 to 14. She listened as T-Mobile employees talked apps, filters and helpful sites like YouTube Kids. But she had education on her mind.

“I’ll be using mine for school,” said the Fort Mill resident of three years. “I’m starting my classes. I’ll be doing a lot of research for school.”

Working through a medical program at Palmetto School in Rock Hill, Starr said her ability to get online without the new tablet has been spotty.

“I have, but it’s normally through my phone,” she said. “You’re always minimizing (screens), making stuff bigger.”

Their stories and others like them are why T-Mobile staff came to the Housing Authority of Fort Mill. Why they brought 50 new Alcatel A30 tablets with them, giving them to residents.

“We’re trying to break generational poverty,” said Mark McDivitt, public sector account manager for T-Mobile’s Southeast region. “That’s the whole thing. We’re doing it through digital literacy.”

The company gives away the tablets, then provides service for $10 a month. Residents get unlimited data, though it slows once they pass the monthly 2G threshold. The company can pre-load anything from educational apps for families with children to bus route information in larger cities.

The Fort Mill effort is the first of its kind locally, though conversations are ongoing in Darlington, Florence and Sumter counties.

“This is a partnership,” McDivitt said. “It’s to help the whole community.”

T-Mobile began working with housing authorities on the tablet campaign, starting in large cities, about 18 months ago. Community response in recent distribution areas meant bringing in more tablets than first planned.

Connie Howard, executive director with Housing Authority of Fort Mill, said there wasn’t a list created or set of requirements for which families from her 141 housing units received a tablet.

“Let’s see how 50 goes first,” she said. “That’s all it was.”

McDivitt sees the tablets helping in a variety of ways.

“You almost can’t apply for a job without internet access,” he said. “Children can’t compete in school.”

Geraldine Wylie, who moved to Fort Mill nine years ago, agrees.

“Everything is on the Internet,” she said. “Homework and everything is on the internet.”

She takes several medications, and has to go online to look up side effects. Then, there is her son.

“I have a 15-year-old son at home, so it’s going to help with studies,” Wylie said. “Homework. It’s going to come in handy.”

The tablets can be used as hot spots to improve service on other devices in the home, though the 2G usage still applies. As residents poured in Monday, Howard imagined a good many ways they could use the new technology. A good many ways that technology could improve their lives.

“We hope that with T-Mobile that people can have all the digital access that they can possibly need,” Howard said.

This story was originally published July 11, 2017 at 3:36 PM with the headline "Not all Fort Mill residents are online. But more are now, one tablet at a time.."