VALDOSTA – The 2020 elections are nearing; so is 20-year-old Jenifer Arellano-Mendoza’s chance to vote for the first time. 

The Valdosta State University junior art and design major was one of the college students crowding the Black Voters Matter Fund table at Drexel Park Monday, Dr. Martin Luther King Day.

The Black Voters Matter Fund held the drive to urge college students to vote.

“I just think it’s really important,” Mendoza said of her reason to register. “My family’s really not that political but I still think it’s a way that I can help out my community and just help give somebody a voice because our voice matters, too.”

Valdosta was the second stop on the Black Voters Matter Fund’s bus tour. The bus also traveled to Albany; while there, it also met with residents of Camilla, organizers said.

The Black Voters Matter Fund is an Atlanta-based nonprofit with the purpose of establishing power among people and shedding light on the electoral process, said Wanda Mosley, group senior state coordinator for Georgia.

She commented on Valdosta’s run-off election in December between Mayor Scott James Matheson and former candidate J.D. Rice.

Matheson defeated Rice by 96 votes.

“Think about it, how many students are registered to vote at Valdosta State,” Mosley posed the question. “Those students had the power to decide that election had they worked collectively and worked together and held a candidate forum.”

She said college students could have determined the election’s outcome.

“Our job is to help our folks to understand that they have power when they work together and how to use that power to better our community and to better their situation here at Valdosta State and any other city where we do work,” Mosley said.

Voting matters because of the voice it gives, self-determination and self-governance, she said.

The Monday observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day played a role in the event’s timing.

Mosley noted students led a significant part of the civil rights movement.

“I’m really excited that the students at VSU are following that legacy and understanding that they’re the leaders of not tomorrow but today,” she said. “This is their time so I’m really excited to be here to work alongside them.”

Lenah Allen, VSU student and Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority member, sat at a table with her sisters as they ate free food and watched a talent show.

Allen is a registered voter and said she and her sorority sisters were at the event to show support toward the message.

“We knew that voting did matter,” she said. “It’s just that all of the students aren’t aware of that.”

She mentioned the polling station at the university.

“There are efforts to kind of make voting a priority here at VSU,” Allen said. “It’s just making more of an awareness towards VSU students.”

VSU’s Black Student League, the African Male Initiative, Alpha Phi Omega and Collegiate Men are listed as some of the event sponsors. 

Follow @blackvotersmtr on social media platforms, or visit blackvotersmatterfund.org, for more information on the nonprofit.