Internet Essentials
Have Vision, Will Travel
May 18, 2014
"Comcast’s Internet Essentials was in its second year," said Marta, Comcast’s government affairs director in Florida, "and we were looking for partners to help us make this program come alive — and here was this woman with a bus."
That woman was 76-year-old Estella Pyfrom. After teaching for 50 years in the Palm Beach County school district, Estella noticed that fewer children had access to computers, and that meant they were falling behind in our technology-driven world. Determined to continue serving children in her retirement, Estella used her life’s savings to buy a bus and outfit it with 17 computer stations, each loaded with educational software.
Her goal was simple: to make a digital classroom accessible to those children who need it most.
She named her program "Estella’s Brilliant Bus." With Marta enthusiastically behind her, Comcast became one of just two corporations to support Estella’s Brilliant Bus. "She’s very quiet, but draws on her inner strength and resourcefulness to make things happen," Marta said. "She’s a bit of a force of nature."
Estella’s Brilliant Bus is also one of South Florida’s most active Internet Essentials partners. Determined to get more poor children and families online, Estella began distributing Internet Essentials brochures before she and Marta even met. She continues to make sure the children and adults she meets today know about the $9.95-a-month Internet plan and the discounted computers and free Internet training available to them.
Estella’s bus travels three to four days a week, visiting mostly low-income neighborhoods and providing 8,000 hours of instruction each year to about 500 children.
"It says a lot for us, and for Internet Essentials, that she has taken it upon herself to recognize the importance of the program and to promote it on her own," Marta said. "She delivers the message as a trusted source in the community — and that is the best kind of endorsement we can get."
