Host organizations across the KC metro reflected on how young adults are bridging language barriers, building trust in reentry and senior care, and creating workforce pipelines.

KC Coalition for Digital Inclusion Oct 2026 Recap

Oct 2, 2026 – The October 2026 meeting of the Kansas City Coalition for Digital Inclusion focused on the impact of integrating young adults into digital navigation roles. Facilitated by Peter Arvanitakis and Leslie Scott with KC Digital Drive, a panel of leaders from six organizations shared success stories, onboarding lessons, and key takeaways on leveraging youth energy to advance digital equity. The panelists included Wendy Moreno (El Centro), Connie Ross (Workforce Partnership), Helen Beteet (Vernon Multipurpose Center), Isabella Mendez (Latinx Education Collaborative), Amanda Riley & Nick Flowers (Journey to New Life), and Emily Spradling (Literacy KC). 

Meeting Overview & Introductions

The October meeting of the Kansas City Coalition for Digital Inclusion was facilitated by Leslie Scott, Digital Inclusion Program Manager at KC Digital Drive. The meeting began with a review of the coalition’s mission and vision and introduction of new attendees.

Featured Panel: Young Adults in Digital Navigation Roles

Hosted by Peter Arvanitakis, the featured panel brought together representatives from six diverse community organizations to discuss their experiences hosting young adults providing digital inclusion-related capacity-building services:

• Vernon Multipurpose Center (Helen Beteet): A 90-year-old historic site in Wyandotte County serving seniors Monday through Friday, which completed its first year hosting a Digital Ambassador who assisted with their device distribution grant from the State of Kansas.
• Literacy KC (Emily Spradling): An adult education organization where former Digital Ambassador Yadira progressed from an ambassador to an AmeriCorps / ACC member, and ultimately to a full-time digital skills instructor.
• El Centro, Inc. (Wendy Moreno): A bilingual nonprofit in Kansas City, Kan., and Olathe focused on economic empowerment, where DA April launched a new digital skills group and NorthStar pilot, learning about and giving back to her community and culture.
• Latinx Education Collaborative (Isabella Mendez): Hosts EducaTec, an all-Spanish digital literacy program that travels throughout the KC metro area, with Isabella representing another DA-to-full-time-staff success story, now as the Program Coordinator for EducaTec.
• Journey to New Life (Nick Flowers & Amanda Riley): A reentry nonprofit serving individuals released from incarceration within the last three years through a peer-led model, employment programming, and a computer lab set up with help from KC Digital Drive. They hosted a Digital Ambassador last year who helped add capacity to their drop ins and client’s digital life needs. 
• Workforce Partnership (Connie Ross): Served as Peter Arvanitakis’s original DA host site, assisting older adults and diverse job-seekers with workforce re-entry, where Peter helped folks with 1:1 digital navigation issues and built trust and necessary capacity to the center.

Key Benefits & Organizational Takeaways

Panelists highlighted numerous benefits that young adults (such as Digital Ambassadors) bring to community spaces:

• Relatability & Trust: Clients often feel more comfortable learning from peers who approach them with empathy and without preconceptions—a quality especially valuable in reentry and immigrant-serving contexts.
• Digital Native Perspective: Navigating technology comes naturally to young adults, allowing them to explain concepts using multiple creative problem-solving approaches. It’s also good to help the young adults learn how to teach these concepts they may understand well but not know how to instruct others until offered experiential learning. 
• Language Bridge: Several bilingual Ambassadors provided vital Spanish-language support, eliminating barriers for Latino adult learners.
• Modeling Confidence & Self-Advocacy: Ambassadors’ open communication and calm demeanor helped build confidence among clients, while modeling positive behaviors for host staff. One host org highlighted how they learned from their DA’s focus on work/life balance.

Lessons Learned & Program Highlights

Host sites also shared constructive insights for future cohort onboarding:

• Setting Expectations: Clear communication around scheduling, professional norms, and consistency is essential, as clients quickly notice and miss absent Ambassadors.
• Generational Patience & Emotional Training: Future orientations will incorporate pre-scripted scenarios for challenging situations, encouragement techniques (such as avoiding phrases like “this will be hard”), and strategies for navigating generational communication gaps.
• KC Digital Drive Pipeline: The Digital Ambassador initiative has established a proven career pipeline, demonstrated by leaders like Peter (DA to ACC), Isabella (DA to full-time coordinator), and Yadira (DA to ACC to full-time instructor).
• Next Cohort Expansion: Criteria remain focused on college-aged students of any major who demonstrate patience, empathy, and teaching interest. With the removal of previous Kansas-only funding restrictions, five host sites have been identified for the next cohort set to begin in Winter 2027, which will recruit students from any local university.

Community Announcements

The meeting concluded with key community notices:

• Become a Northstar Expert: Learn the ins and outs of using the Northstar digital literacy platform at a FREE three-part training series, supported by a grant from Comcast NBCUniversal Community Impact. This live, remote training for Kansas City-area organizations currently using Northstar or wanting to learn more about how to implement it to serve their students will be Oct. 13 and 20 from 2-3:30 p.m. and Oct. 27 from 2-4 p.m. Please contact Theresa Sladek at tsladek@literacymn.org to register and mention you are a current or prospective KC-area Northstar subscriber. 
• Vernon Adopt 2.0 Device Program: Nearly 600 people have applied for the program, which offers iPads and laptops to Wyandotte County and Kansas City, KS residents. The application deadline is October 16 via vernonmpc.org or by contacting the center directly to join the waitlist.

Want to get involved? Visit digitalinclusionkc.org  to learn more, sign up for updates, or watch past meetings. Membership is free—just email Leslie Scott at lscott@kcdigitaldrive.org. Join us for the next meeting on November 6, 2026 (10:30 a.m.-noon) via Zoom. More information here.