Lorraine Flores, her 16-year-old son Mel Betters, and the rest of their family of 10 living on the Pascua Yaqui Indian Reservation in Tucson find creative ways to stay connected during the COVID pandemic. “My daughters are having Friday night movie parties with their friends online since we can’t go to each other’s house anymore,” Flores said, “It’s the only normal we have.”
The family is grateful to have affordable high-speed internet through Internet Essentials from Comcast.
[The internet] is definitely essential. It’s something they have to use every day. Now more than ever Internet Essentials has been a great help,” Flores said.
Having home internet has allowed them to keep in touch with extended family, do things they enjoy, and stay on top of their schoolwork. Mel is grateful to be able to talk with his peers online and continue the conversations they would have had in the classroom, “Me and my friend Jesus got into a really debated topic about the laws and the amendments because that’s what we’re learning right now in school…. We got extra credit for it and it was definitely worth it because I learned a lot about his point of view as well as my own.”
Mel wants to grow up to work in neurological analysis or biomedical engineering and having home internet is helping him get there.
Comcast has connected more than 6,800 low-income Southern Arizonans to the internet at home through Internet Essentials since launching the program in 2011; and since COVID-19, Comcast has connected hundreds more students and families to the power of the internet at home.
Families who are eligible for public assistance programs such as the National School Lunch Program, Housing Assistance, Medicaid, SNAP, SSI, and others – like the Betters family living on the Pascua Yaqui Indian Reservation in Tucson – can sign up for Internet Essentials from Comcast and get high-speed internet for $9.95 a month as well as computers at a discounted price.