T-Mobile presents big check to HTI

HENDERSON — HUBZone Technology Initiative was awarded a T-Mobile Hometown Grant to the tune of $45,157 on Friday afternoon. The plan is to put that cash, which will formally enter their coffers soon, towards a service van that will allow the nonprofit to deliver and pick up laptops — and in counties further than it can currently service.

HTI's application was one of 25 to be accepted — and one of 700 to be submitted, explained T-Mobile Rural Market Manager Mark Hall. HTI helps out other nonprofits — so there would be ripple effects, so to speak, by accepting its grant application.

That grant is one of 500, totaling $25 million, to be given out over the next five years.

Mayor Melissa Elliott attended the presentation and added a few words — the "cross-sector partnership" is an indication of the many great things happening in Henderson.

Indeed — as part of Friday's ceremony, HTI Associate Director Mark Williams also presented donations of laptops to Franklin-Granville-Vance Smart Start, Turning Point Community Development Corporation and Flex Desk 360 — the latter will be holding classes on AI soon and wanted to ensure anyone could participate.

HTI receives donations of laptops, retrofits them with Chrome's operating system and donates them back to nonprofits in Vance County and beyond — further still, soon, thanks to the T-Mobile grant.

It's a good use for old laptops, Williams said. HTI is starting to become known for that, said founder Matt Raydo.

FGV Smart Start Director Tony Cozart added that the organization wouldn't achieve its full potential without collaborating with others.

Collaboration is all the more important nowadays — whether in Asheville or Henderson, said Williams. Hall himself had just returned from the storm-wracked mountain city earlier this week to pick up his son from University of North Carolina Asheville. The pair promptly returned with a trailer full of hundreds of bottles of water and a hundred gallons of gas.