Computing a difference
By Janette Neuwahi Snapshots
Staff Writer Portraits of Local Lives

Palm Coast- Carrying a plastic mug full of tea. Veronica Maggs treks through the chilly morning air toward the outskirts of the Flagler County school bus parking lot-keys in hand.
She pries open the heavy doors and lumbers up the steps, then starts a safety inspection of the vehicle, all part of a routine needed to pick up her computer students.
But driving a bus is a task she never expected her job to entall. Instead, Maggs saw herself rattling away on a word processor from inside a Flagler County office cubicle.
Yet, last summer, Maggs surprised herself again.
In a classroom thousands of miles from home, she hunched over a disassembled computer surrounded by Filipino children absorbing her every word about motherboards and memory sticks.
And in the fall, Maggs spent a day at the United Nations, where she told delegates, how Make It- Take It program is trying to break the cycle of poverty in Florida, and how access to computers for students could do the same in Southeast Asia.
Maggs laughs when asked if she could thought her teaching job would take her so far.
“ I never thought I’d be going to the Philippines, especially working for a school district,” she said of her position with the Flagler County School System.
“ I never thought the opportunity would come in and, if it came, that I’d be allowed to go.” Her enthusiasm for helping the disadvantaged is unavoidable in a conversation. Maggs, 56, said she always wanted to do charity work, but it wasn’t until a School Board meeting in 2002 that she figured out how.
Board members were discussing a new imitative called Make It- Take It Program aimed at bridging the digital divide between students with home computers and those without. Now Maggs and Volunteer Bill Welch spend at least two days a week teaching students how to refurbish the computers, which are donated by government offices and private companies. At the end of the program, students get to take a computer home for free.
When Maggs learned about the program, she was working as a technology director for Flagler County’s adult education classes. She begged her boss to let her take on Make It – Take It. Soon, it became a full-time job.
The program is so successful that it has become an example for other school districts, said the Make It – Take It program’s founder, Stetson University business professor Shahram Amiri.
“ If we could only clone Veronica 67 times. I think this program could became a national model.” Amiri said, referring to each of Florida’s counties. “ She’s terrific.”
But making the program work demands resourcefulness. When it became difficult to attract the neediest students to her classroom. Maggs took a six-week class to learn how to drive a school bus.
Now, she spends each Wednesday shuttling her special education students from Flagler Palm Coast High School north to Matanzas High School, where she herds them into her computer classroom.
While on the road, Maggs cracks jokes with her students from the front seat and chatters with them about the latest session.
“She is a self-starter.” Said Maggs boss. Mary Gilbert, director of adult education for the Flagler County School District. “She makes (what she does) become indispensable to us.”
That she ended up teaching computers was unlikely path for Maggs.
“I was one of those people who never used a computer. “ she said
But things changed when Maggs divorced her husband in the early 90’s Without child support, the mother of four said she was deep in dept and went on welfare for a short time.
The experience encouraged her to find work- fast. So the former secretary signed up for a computer class in Flagler County’s Adult Education program. She liked the class so much she took it again. And again.
Eventually, she was asked to teach the class. Then, Maggs was promoted as a technology director, and four years ago took over the Make It – Take It program.
In 2006, she learned about Palm Coast resident Josie Garcia’s fledging charity, the Joy & Care-Giving Foundation, which raises money to operate two schools in the Philippines.
Maggs and Garcia became friends and the two traveled to the schools together last summer, in a city called Bulacan about 30 minutes outside the Filipino capital of Manila.
Maggs taught computers to high school students and adults, then donated 30 of Flagler’s recycled computers for the schools to use.
After Maggs’visit, she said the widow of the local mayor decided to donate a technology center. And the two women are now trying to set up a meeting with Philippines President Gloria Macapeg al Arroyo to talk about bringing more technology to the island nation.
Maggs said she never dreamed her career would take the path it has.
“ I love the faith that people put in this program. It makes me actually feel like I’m making a difference in people’s lives.” And, she added. “ I consider myself to have the best job in the school system.”