It is said life wasn't meant to be easy. But for two students in New Mexico, it's tougher than most us will ever imagine, let alone experience. Like their young peers, Bea and Jeramy are just a couple of Hispanic kids trying to overcome the rigors of attending Las Cruces' Alameda Elementary.

That is where the similarities to their classmates stop.

Bea and Jeramy are both quadriplegics, facing a unique set of educational and lifestyle challenges. Unfortunately, neither Bea, whose disability is due to cerebral palsy, or Jeramy, a victim of a traumatic head injury, had home access to the best learning tool either could hope for - a computer.

That was until teacher Sue Buse realized the importance of each having a computer at home. So Sue contacted local Las Cruces organization The Function 1 Foundation, Inc. about Project F1.

Project F1's primary goal is to provide needy people and non-profit organizations with computer packages and software free of charge. Sue wrote to the Foundation's President Robert Doyle explaining Bea and Jeramy's plight. Sue said she was "planning to set the computers up in their homes to facilitate educational and recreational activities ...(and)...in my professional opinion, access to the technical world will open a whole new realm of activities for these children. This will be their major form of communication."

Bea and Jeramy's learning potential received a boost when the Foundation donated two MacIntosh computer systems earlier this year. Doyle said he was more than willing to help the students.

"There are schools with three of four computers in every class and there are schools with none. We are trying to fill the void by giving computers to people who will use them. When we drop off a computer - to see the results of that is pretty neat." Project F1 has donated more than 100 computers since it formed in 1998. Currently Project F1 mostly services southern New Mexico, which has a high concentration of ESL students. "We have given away about 100 complete computer systems, which include printers/CD-Roms, monitors. We donate whatever is given to us but sometimes it may take four machines to make one," he said. "There is a lot of Spanish spoken down here, we have donated a lot of computers to ESL classes. Most of the schools are using them for that. ESL classes don't get the financing they need _ they get short-changed."

The Function 1 Foundation is owned by Function 1 Software, which opened for business in 1993.

Since the Foundation's inception last year, F1 Software was forced to move to a bigger office, now including a warehouse.

Doyle said: "Our goal is to continue to expand it as far as it will go - we want to get more computers out there.

"We need more hard-drives, CD-Roms and memory - for some reason people keep memory to install on their new machines even though I tell them it will only slow them down." Doyle also emphasized that Project F1 was not simply a regional program but encourages needy recipients to contact the Foundation about the program and companies to contact him about donating unwanted machines.

More hardware, software and corporate sponsors are imperative for the success of the program.

If you have any questions or can help, Robert can be contacted toll free on 1-800-298-7043, fax (505) 524-3042 or email info@function1.org.