Three New York Area Schools for the Deaf Receive Grants From the Bell Atlantic Foundation

Three New York Area Schools for the Deaf
Receive Grants
From the Bell Atlantic Foundation

June 9, 1999

NEW YORK -- Three schools for the deaf in the New York metropolitan
area are recipients of grants from the Bell Atlantic Foundation

Representatives from the Cleary School for the Deaf in Nesconset (Long

Island), the Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens and the St. Francis
de Sales School for the Deaf in Brooklyn accepted the gifts recently
during a Bell Atlantic Deaf & Hard of Hearing Awareness Day program at
the company's Manhattan headquarters.

"The Bell Atlantic Foundation is committed to working with
educational institutions to help give people in the communities we serve
the tools to improve their lives and achieve their goals," said John
Rollo, Bell Atlantic's executive director for community affairs in New
York. "We are pleased to partner with these schools in advancing
educational technology and helping people who are deaf and hard-of-
hearing communicate."

Each of the schools will use its grant to support programs designed to
enhance the use of computer technology and the Internet in the education
of deaf and hearing-impaired children. The Cleary School for the Deaf
and St. Francis de Sales School for the Deaf will use their grants -- for
$7,435 and $10,000, respectively -- to provide Internet access for their
students and staff members. Lexington School for the Deaf will apply its
$10,000 grant to the continued development of a Deaf Resource Center, a
repository of information related to deafness and the Deaf community that
includes a display of assistive devices used by deaf and hard-of-hearing
individuals.

The Bell Atlantic Foundation supports a variety of projects domestically
and internationally, with an emphasis on new technology applications in
education, health and
human services, the arts and humanities, and civic development in the
communities served
by Bell Atlantic. For more information, visit
www.bellatlanticfoundation.com on the Internet.

Bell Atlantic is at the forefront of the new communications and
information industry. With more than 43 million telephone access lines
and nine million wireless customers worldwide, Bell Atlantic companies
are premier providers of advanced wireline voice and data services,
market leaders in wireless services and the world's largest publishers of
directory information. Bell Atlantic companies are also among the world's
largest investors in high-growth global communications markets, with
operations and investments in 23 countries.