Last year, Garfield’s Global Technology Academy (GTA) was shut down, ending the long-standing tradition of GTA trips to foreign countries. Students in the program had learned about, collected, and refurbished computers in their Tech class and then brought them to villages in countries around the world.

The termination of GTA infuriated past and present students involved in the organization. They tried complaints and petitions, but the decision was final: GTA was over.

“For me, GTA was where I belonged at Garfield. The bunker was my kingdom,” said Ben Huppe, a Garfield student. “This was what I wanted to do. On Thursday, March 20, when I entered my 2nd period tech services class and found out from a substitute that I had to change my schedule, that Garfield High School would no long be offering any class associated with GTA, I was both confused and pissed off.”

Reluctant to accept defeat, former GTA students and their parents grouped together to salvage the ideas of the previous organization.

“We wanted to continue the cultural community service project,” said junior Kate Collins, one of the main lobbyers.

“GTA combined seeing different parts of the world with helping poor communities that have limited access to technology.”

“I went on one of the GTA trips last year to Chile and that was basically the best two and a half weeks of my life,” said Zoe Storck, another GTA student. “I know this sounds cheesy but it’s really a life-changing experience.”

“We went to Chile in December of 2007,” Huppe said, describing his experience on the same trip. “It wasn’t fun because we missed school; it was fun because we were able to install 70 computers in a town and region that had very little access to the technology; it was fun because we were able to interact with people our own age in another country; it was fun because I felt like I belonged to something. We may have started out as 20 individuals, but we ended up as a team.”

Collins worked with Ben Huppe and Thomas Huston to form the Technology Service Corps (TSC), a non-profit organization, to replace GTA. There is no class at school, making it harder to organize and refurbish the computers. However, students meet outside school to continue this tradition.

“Our first trip will be to Guatemala in spring of 2009,” explained Collins. “We’ll stay in a small town right outside Antigua.”

While there, students plan to take refurbished computers to a high school that has no computers for its students. They are still working out details of the trip, communicating with a Guatemalan boy named Erick Lopez who worked with Garfield students on previous trips to the country. Collins and Huppe will be the student leads, with Storck as the assistant lead. At least three parent chaperones will accompany the group.

Seattle high school students will have an opportunity to develop leadership skills through activities and projects, earn community service, develop technology skills, teach these skills to others, and enhance access to technology throughout the world. The corporation also works to recycle computers by using them instead of throwing them away.

”Mr. Rye always used to think about one thing,” said Huppe. “He learned it from our trip: Though we might look different, and though we may speak differently or have different capabilities, we, throughout this world are the same. A teenager in Seattle acts like a teenager in Portezuelo.”