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Through its Young Entrepreneurs Program in partnership with Atlanta Public Schools, Sons of Pitches FC works with student leaders to explore what it means to build and operate a small business. The goal is not simply profit—it’s perspective. Students learn how to identify community needs, test ideas, generate revenue responsibly, and create something sustainable that serves others. For Giovannie Simmons, that framework didn’t just sharpen an idea. It helped formalize something he had already begun building.

In middle school, Giovannie Simmons rotated through three outfits.

He mixed and matched them carefully, stretching what he had into as many combinations as possible. The hallway economy operated on signals—brand names, new releases, visible status. When you don’t have access to those signals, you learn quickly where you stand. Gio remembers the word that followed him during that season of life: “chopped.” It meant unattractive. Not put together. Not someone you’d look twice at.

For a student still discovering who he was becoming, that label could have hardened into identity. Instead, it became a starting point.

“I didn’t really have the funds,” Gio says. “But I was still able to use what I had to create my own type of style.”

That shift—from comparison to creation—would quietly shape the path he’s on now.

Giovannie, known to most as Gio, is entering his senior year in Atlanta Public Schools. He is a three-year participant in the Turner Foundation for Community Advocacy, where he helped raise over $1.5 million for the reconstruction of Stone Hogan Park, funding trails, workout stations, a playground, and a renovated basketball court that now stays busy with neighborhood activity. He recently completed an internship with Sons of Pitches FC, where conversations about design thinking, empathy, and entrepreneurship refined ideas he had already been living.

When Gio talks about community, he doesn’t begin with dollar amounts or accolades. He talks about clothing.

“I see why a lot of kids wear hoodies,” he explains. “They don’t have a lot of shirts. If they got one nice shirt, they’ll want to protect it.”

The observation carries weight because it comes from experience. He remembers feeling self-conscious about what he wore, aware that fashion in school can feel like a currency system. The brand name on a tag often matters more than the creativity behind the outfit. But somewhere around tenth grade, Gio began frequenting thrift stores and discovered something liberating: style doesn’t require wealth, it requires imagination.

“I go to Goodwill probably every week,” he says. “I’ll spend like $12 and make it work.”

He began distressing shirts, tailoring thrifted finds, reworking band tees into something distinctively his own. What started as necessity became philosophy. Fashion, he realized, is not defined by cost but by expression. The way something is worn matters more than the logo attached to it.

That philosophy became the foundation for the Fashion Club at his school.

Rather than centering exclusivity or trends, the club centers access and creativity. Gio envisioned a space where students could learn to sew, redesign thrifted pieces, and build confidence in how they present themselves. During a school showcase, he displayed several customized shirts. Students asked to buy them. By the end of the day, he had sold multiple pieces and realized the club could operate like a small business—revenue funding growth, growth expanding opportunity.

“We can have resale. We can create our own clothing,” he says. “Use that money for sewing machines, materials.”

At present, the club has one sewing machine. Gio wants several. He wants sophomores and freshmen trained to lead after he graduates. He imagines thrift tours that double as neighborhood cleanups—students sourcing locally, then giving back to the same community. He sees partnerships with photography programs to document the designs and amplify awareness. He talks about buses and structured funding not for prestige, but for sustainability.

The Young Entrepreneurs framework helped him see that vision more clearly. Building something meaningful requires structure—interviews, feedback loops, testing ideas, listening first. During his internship, he practiced interviewing peers to understand what they wanted from the club rather than assuming.

“The interview process really makes you dial in,” he says. “Trying to get the most raw information out.”

The lesson was larger than fashion. It was about service. Solutions work best when built from real voices, not distant theory. Gio’s work with the Turner Foundation follows the same principle—meeting with city leaders, advocating for improvements, learning how systems operate, and identifying where youth perspective can influence real change.

“My hope is to amplify who I am and spread awareness for the place that I live,” he says. “Who Gio is—Atlanta.”

He speaks about murals and culture, but also about areas that need investment and attention. His desire to create better options for young people is not abstract. It is rooted in lived experience and observation. Fashion simply became his most immediate vehicle.

As he prepares for a weeklong summer program at SCAD focused on fashion and marketing, Gio is thinking about legacy. Not in grand terms, but in continuity. He wants the Fashion Club to thrive without him. He wants younger students to inherit structure, resources, and belief.

Looking back, the three rotating outfits no longer represent limitations. They represent the moment he chose to redefine the rules. Instead of accepting a narrow definition of what makes someone fashionable, he expanded it. Instead of withdrawing, he created.

In soccer, the best teams understand that the badge represents something larger than the individual wearing it. Gio is building something similar—not stitched in gold thread, but sewn from thrifted fabric and resilience. He once walked school hallways trying not to stand out for the wrong reasons. Now he walks into rooms confident that style is not about cost, but about intention.

He didn’t just learn how to dress differently.

He learned how to build something that helps others do the same.