It’s a disparity Tracy couple Eric and Lynda Hawkins aim to fix.

“Kids should know how a computer functions,” Eric Hawkins said. “They should understand what parts go together to power it up, to make it do what we want it to do.”

The Hawkinses — who have three children of their own — have started a nonprofit called U Need 2 through which they offer classes to teach kids how to build, repair and operate a run-of-the-mill desktop computer.

The couple organizes about two or three eight-week class sessions a year, with the next one starting the first week of September. The free classes held out of Stone Pine Apartments, 229 W. Grant Line Road, teach kids how to assemble a computer from scratch. Using donated desktop computers, the Hawkinses show mostly low-income kids the ins and outs of a computer’s anatomy.

In the end, each pupil takes home the machine he or she built from the ground up.

“It’s a good class, a good basic technology how-to,” said Lynda Hawkins, who, with her husband, owned a computer repair company in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade before moving to Tracy five years ago.

The pair plans to take the tech class to the local Boys & Girls Clubs later this fall. Until then, classes will be from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning Tuesday at Stone Pine Meadows. The apartment manager opened up the room where the Hawkinses teach their computer class in part because a lot of young people hang out in the neighborhood and need something to keep them busy.

“We especially want low-income kids to have the opportunity to learn about technology and, of course, to get a free computer out of it, too,” Eric Hawkins said.

The computer-building classes usually attract about six students each time, most of them high school-aged. Some, like 11-year-old Corriana Brown, plan to return to the free class as tutors this fall.

“I just learned a lot about how the computer works, and practical things, like how to install a CD-ROM drive,” Corriana said. “I want to see what comes next.”

Once the nonprofit gets more established, the Hawkins family wants to offer the class to seniors at local nursing homes, too.

“Computers and technology — it’s what I know how to do,” Eric Hawkins said. “So that’s the best way I know how to give back.”

Meet the Hawkinses

• Age: Eric, 43; Lynda, 39

Family: Daughters, Shennel, 16, and Shaelyn, 9; and son, E.J., 13

• Years in Tracy: Five

• Involvement: Directors of nonprofit U Need 2

• Donate: Computer classes aren’t the only thing offered by U Need 2. The Hawkins family also gives free school supplies to poor students. To donate backpacks and other school supplies, drop them off at the main office at Stone Pine Meadows Apartments, 229 W. Grant Line Road, or contact the organization through its Web site at www.uneed2.org.

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Three years ago, Eric and Lynda Hawkins set out to make a difference in Tracy. Having just moved back to the Hamlet by the Highway after making a more-than-decent living in real estate investment, the couple figured it was time to get more hands-on in the community.

“Once we moved back out here … we sat down and said it’s time for us to get back involved in the community,” Eric Hawkins explained from the living room of his south Tracy home. “Especially here — I like being here in Tracy. It’s a small town, it’s kind of tight, everybody knows everybody, and so everybody kind of helps everybody.”

For the married Eric and Lynda, figuring out how to get in on the helping was easy — the computer-based nonprofit they founded was a natural convergence of past and present expertise.

Read more: Tracy Press – Second Thoughts Computing a charity’s success