Atlanta City Councilman Jason Dozier is excited about the future of Georgia’s capital. Through Comcast, two metro Atlanta nonprofit organizations, Raising Expectations and Inspiredu, received $110,000 in grants to bring more digital equity to the city.
At Comcast’s announcement, Dozier spoke to rolling out about what the grants mean for the people of Atlanta.
What did you think of Comcast’s announcement?
I thought it was great. It’s awesome to see not only our community partners, particularly with Inspiredu, as well as raising expectations, be grantees, and be at the forefront of this initiative but also having private philanthropic dollars committed to this effort speaks to Comcast as a great organization working to address this issue.
Also, it speaks to the fact there’s such a big need to address this issue. When you have a company like Comcast come to Atlanta to say, ‘[We want to address this issue],’ to me, it says we’ve got some work to do on both the private side but also the public side in the city of Atlanta. This is something we need to take a leadership role in as well.
What do you think this does for the next generation of children?
One of the things that was alarming to me during the pandemic was that we saw how many young people had to go to a McDonald’s or Chick-fil-A to get access to the internet. A lot of our public facilities, libraries, or recreation centers were closed, especially at the height of the pandemic. But yet, folks still have school; folks still had to log in, even for elementary school. It made it clear how important it was to ensure everyone had an opportunity to have internet connectivity to be able to have access to the training and the education that makes them competitive for the next generation in the workforce. We want to make sure we are supporting the next generation in a way that they deserve.
Are there any other issues people should be aware of?
On this issue, I think it’s just in response to what we saw during the pandemic and in response to the efforts of the philanthropic community. The city is looking to install Wi-Fi routers and more of our recreation centers and make them more digital hubs for young people, families, and seniors to be able to have access to the internet. We’ve seen that in Dunbar Neighborhood Center in Mechanicsville, Rosel Fann Recreation Center, as well as the pilots for that program. The city is trying to play a stronger role in making sure we address the digital equity divide in the same way Comcast is trying to do as well. It’s a partnership, and it’s a collaboration. I’m excited about what that will mean for our communities going forward.
