A nonprofit in formation · Central Florida

AI literacy, close to home.

Practical, ethical AI education for rural and underserved communities — taught in churches, libraries, fairs and classrooms by people who live there.

WhereCitrus, Levy, Marion and the surrounding counties
WhatFree, short sessions on the AI tools people are already bumping into
Who it’s forParents, grandparents, small business owners, educators, returning citizens

The gap

The AI conversation is happening without them.

We are not short on AI announcements in rural Florida. What is missing is a room, a teacher, and an hour where somebody explains it plainly and answers the questions people are too polite to ask out loud.

What is actually happening

Work, school and public services are reorganizing around these tools. Families in our counties get the press release, not the training.

What it feels like from inside

Most people we talk to assume this is for someone else — younger, richer, more technical. That is not a knowledge gap. It is an invitation gap.

Why it should not be this way

A technology that will shape their children’s work should not be something a community meets for the first time as a threat.

Our plan

Three steps, in the order trust is built.

01

Meet people where they gather

Church basements, county fairs, barbershops, libraries, homeschool co-ops. Nobody should have to drive to a campus to be taken seriously.

02

Teach the honest basics

What these tools do, where they are confidently wrong, who profits from them, and what a person should never hand over to one.

03

Put it to work locally

A farm office, a small business, a classroom, a job search. The test is whether it changes what someone can do on Monday.

Programs in development

Formats built for rural life, not conference rooms.

Those four commitments are the V.I.N.E. framework and the filter every session has to pass: it has to point somewhere, connect to what people already know, prepare for what is next, and be honest about what the technology costs.

Signature program

Second Chance AI

An offline-first AI course designed for incarcerated learners — no internet required inside the facility, and no prison language on the credential. Built for the classrooms the rest of the AI training world has written off.

Community

County fair tent & pop-ups

A booth beside the pie contest. Two hours in a church basement. A bulletin insert that explains one tool at a time. Short, free, repeatable.

Schools & families

Parent and educator briefings

What your child is already using, what the homework rules should be, and how to tell a real AI answer from a confident guess.

Small business

Local enterprise clinics

Inventory, invoices, schedules, customer replies — the unglamorous tasks where a small operation either saves hours or loses them.

Where we are

We would rather be corrected now than look impressive early.

Digital Trellis Foundation is a Florida nonprofit in formation. No program described on this page is funded or running yet, and this page exists so the people we intend to serve can tell us what we are getting wrong before we build it.

If you run a church, a library, a school, a co-op or a business in Citrus, Levy, Marion or the surrounding counties — and you have a room and an hour — that is the entire ask.