Several area senior centers will help older adults get up to speed on technology thanks to a state digital literacy grant.

At the South County Senior Center, seniors will be able to enter a lottery for one of 129 iPads or for a stipend to pay internet bills with a $100,000 grant, while the Bernardston Senior Center received an $88,000 grant that it will share with several other neighboring towns. The money comes through the Executive Office of Elder Affairs’ Enhancing Digital Literacy for Older Adults grant, which is primarily focused on supporting rural and gateway communities across the state.

South County Senior Center Director Jennifer Remillard said increasing access to technology is an important tool in ensuring seniors are connected to family and friends and are able to navigate the increasingly digital world. The price tag of many items, such as iPads, which cost $450 for the newest generation, also prevents many older adults and others on fixed income from purchasing them.

“We’ve heard from some of our members that they receive tech from family, but they don’t now how to use it so it stays in the box,” Remillard said. “Purchasing technology can be cost-prohibitive for many of our older adults within the community.”

To increase access, the senior center used a portion of its grant to purchase 131 iPads and will raffle off 129 of them to adults 60 and older living in Deerfield, Sunderland and Whately. The other two iPads will be left at the Senior Center, alongside three laptops, where members can use them at their leisure.

In addition, the Senior Center also will host technology training sessions for people who win the iPads, as well as digital access stipends for 52 older adults in the community. The stipends are up to $500 over 12 months and can help cover internet service costs.

“The value of what we’re offering is not just the tangible item,” Remillard said, “but the knowledge to use it.”

Applications for the lotteries are available now at the Senior Center. The drawings are open to anyone living in Deerfield, Sunderland and Whately who is 60 years old or older.

In Bernardston, Senior Center director Jennifer Reynolds said the grant will provide Warwick, Leyden, Charlemont, Colrain, Heath and Rowe’s councils on aging with six tablets, and Northfield and Bernardston senior centers with seven tablets “because they are larger towns.”

Seniors will specifically use Claris Companion tablets, tech designed for older seniors with features like large text and buttons, notifications which pop up full-screen, and “unified messaging” which allows users to send email, text, and app messages all from one central chatroom to safeguard against stress over accounts, according to the company’s website. Users start with only five buttons before they can add on more features like news, games, and websites. Family members can also set up the tablets remotely and enable the features.

Bernardston also will add a public computer lab with two desktop computers and three monitors with one designated for tech instruction, a printer, Wi-Fi access points, and a cybersecurity firewall. Leyden’s Council on Aging also will receive a public desktop computer and monitor, according to Reynolds.

The grant not only provides technology for seniors, but also education programs aimed to simplify the digital world on their screens, including 100 remote one-on-one support sessions and more than 20 interactive webinars each week. Volunteers will be available for specific questions at the center.

“If people want to bring in their tablets and work together on them, they can,” Reynolds said, adding that the creation of a learning environment will benefit everyone with better knowledge about technology. “Then they don’t have to worry about logins, passwords, if their anti-virus software gets out of date … getting scammed.”

Reynolds thanked the neighboring councils on aging and senior centers for letting Bernardston take the lead on this grant and she said this will help a large group of people connect with family and friends through technology, as well as access online resources.

“A lot of them don’t have senior centers; they do have ambitious (councils on aging), so it just made sense for me to try to spearhead it … their willingness to trust me was just amazing. You have to work well with others to make things work,” Reynolds said. “I think people genuinely are looking to improve their use of computer technology, their use of email, video messaging — I think people will be really excited.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.