Giving Compass' Take:

· Writing for The 74, Kei-Sygh Thomas discusses the problems with America's digital divide and explains how Gen Z activists have used their social media followers to help close this gap. 

· What opportunities exist for donors to fix the digital divide? Investments in areas without working Wi-fi is one place to start.

· Here's more on the power of Gen Z activists and the digital divide. 

Merrit Jones grew up in West Columbia and Cayce, South Carolina, and for most of her childhood, she attended predominantly low-income public schools in Lexington County. Jones was a sophomore in high school when her mother, a local school board member, transferred her to River Bluff High School in a larger neighboring district.

While still struggling, Jones’s new district had better resources and far less poverty than her old one. Some 70 percent of students in the district where she grew up were either homeless, in the foster care system, or receiving food stamps, welfare, or Medicaid, versus 40 percent of students in her new district, according to state education data. The disparity shocked her at first but then catapulted Jones, who is now a college junior and a fierce education equity advocate, into action.

“I took a week off during my senior year of high school to investigate education inequality in South Carolina. I toured eight different middle and high schools across the state, and it became so evident that school experiences in South Carolina were widely different,” Jones told The 74. “Young people in schools three minutes to an hour away from me did not have working Wi-Fi. Some schools did not have basic resources like textbooks that were newer than 15 years old. Those students were keenly aware that their schools were under-resourced.”

Read the full article about Gen Z activists and the digital divide by Kei-Sygh Thomas at The 74.