Cornerstone Alliance has held the ribbon cutting to celebrate its new public WiFi project in Benton Harbor.
The agency has used a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to deploy free WiFi in five strategic locations around the city, and now anyone can log on and use the web.
Cornerstone, city commissioners, and supporters gathered at Union Park, one of the free WiFi locations, for the celebration Tuesday. Cornerstone Alliance manager of physical development Jillian Nadolski said this all started with a pilot program in the Arts District.
“This came about as a result of COVID, so emphasizing getting out in public and utilizing green spaces, community gathering spaces, and promoting access and providing this resource that everyone needs access to,” Nadolski said.”
Nadolski said when learning and many jobs went virtual, the need for high-speed internet everywhere was obvious.
“It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity, and so doing our part to get that out into the community has been valuable for us.”
The locations being served with the free public WiFi are Union Park, June Woods Park, Harbor City Flats, the Buss Apartments, and the Youth Campus for the Boys and Girls Club. Four of the five sites are now up and running with Buss Apartments to be finished soon.
To sign on to the WiFi, just look for “BH_FreeWifi” when in one of the above areas. That’ll take a user to a splash page with some basic information, and then they’ll be connected.
