Albany native Dontravious Simmons joins 2019 Young Gamechangers
Simmons has done research on targeted community: Walton County, Monroe
By Jada Haynes
ALBANY — With the new year, the Georgia-based Young Gamechangers will focus their community evaluation on Walton County and the city of Monroe. Along with Erin Andrews, Dontravious Simmons is the second Albany native who will be part of the 50-person evaluation team.
Simmons is a library assistant at Merry Acres Middle School, where he assists the school with information technology, works as a part-time youth development coordinator with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Albany and is the youngest person Dougherty County commissioners have appointed to the local Board of Voter Registration and Elections.
Simmons said he applied to be part of the Gamechangers in late October. He’d heard about the group last year when they came to Albany, but it was too late to apply.
“I kept reading up about the organization, kept studying it and talked with several people who did the study with them while they were here in Albany,” Simmons said. “So this year, I had the opportunity to go ahead and apply for it. I’m excited about the experience.”
Simmons said that he’s most looking forward to the networking opportunities, the millennial standpoint — “that 21st-century thinking” — and bringing his skills as a youth coordinator to the project, for which he says his six years working in the school system has prepared him.
Simmons said he believes more young people should involve themselves in the Gamechangers program.
“It’s an experience that I believe every young entrepreneur should take,” he said. “Every business leader, every young leader should be a part of it. To be chosen out of a whole state, out of 50, speaks volumes for a 25-year-old.”
As far as personal experience with Walton County and the city of Monroe, Simmons said he has already done research on the area.
“One of the things that I’ve found is that it’s a community similar to Albany that can use some knowledge on how to keep it attractive for millennials,” Simmons said. “How to keep millennials engaged in their community by entrepreneurship, by taking the talent that’s in that community and allowing them to branch out and to redefine the stigma of that community and city. It’s a very neat, interesting city with a lot of potential to grow and to be a good, predominate community and city.”
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