KQED
September 22, 2020

Third grade teacher Alena Anberg cruised down Highway 99 in her Ford F-150, past acres of almond orchards that split the terrain just outside her hometown of Arbuckle in Colusa County. She grew up in this town of 3,000 and knows the back roads well, which helped as she made several stops to deliver iPads, laptops and old smart phones with SIM cards installed to turn them into Wi-Fi hot spots.

In the days shortly after the coronavirus pandemic shut down schools, this was Anberg’s daily routine: helping students connect to their teachers online, by any means necessary.

Waiting outside his trailer home for the delivery was third grader Antonio Campos and his mom. He smiled shyly when Anberg walked up. The family had Wi-Fi thanks to the hot spot Anberg set them up with earlier, but they didn’t know how to use the Chromebook. Anberg had returned to help.