A borrowed computer is like a rental car—it works, but the user can never really get comfortable with it. "You really feel like you understand something on the computer when you're able to spend many hours [on it]," notes Elisabeth Stock. But "when you give computers to schools," she says, "there's often no sense of ownership."

That's why Stock, 32, co-founded the New York City-based Computers for Youth, a program that provides low-income families with donated computers and Internet access. Stock who lives in Manhattan with her husband, Ben Austin, 37 a marketing exec, launched the program in 1999 with lawyer Dan Dolgin. So far, CFY has given computers to 251 families, who also receive a short lesson. The only hitch? Getting kids to stop hogging the computers."We say during training, 'Have all the parents gotten to touch the keyboard and the mouse?' All the parents will say no."