AMERICUS — The efforts to establish a regional college and career academy to support Sumter County and its surrounding area received a significant boost with Phoebe Sumter Medical Center announcing its financial investment in the academy on March 19 at the Sumter County Chamber of Commerce’s 98th Annual Meeting at South Georgia Technical College. Phoebe Sumter, a primary healthcare employer in the region, serves an eight-county area (Dooly, Macon, Marion, Schley, Stewart, Sumter, Taylor, and Webster counties) and represents over $21 million in wages.
With an obvious stake in the community’s viability, Phoebe Sumter Medical Center provides an economic impact of $127 million annually and is an essential partner to One Sumter’s workforce development efforts. Phoebe Sumter CEO Brandi Lunneborg also serves as the Workforce Needs & Instruction chair — a vital role in designing the critical pathways for curriculum design and content, as well as establishing the necessary business and industry partnerships needed to meet the work-based and dual enrollment objectives of the academy.
Lunneborg expressed her support. “Phoebe Sumter is committed to advancing the College and Career Academy in Sumter County to provide a sustainable path for students to prepare to successfully fill the future needs of local businesses, including our own,” she said.
One Sumter chair, Alex Saratsiotis echoed Lunneborg’s statement of need for the academy, stating, “We are extremely appreciative of the support and contributions we have received to fund the CCA Initiative thus far in our process. We believe this initiative is vital to the success of Sumter County and are ecstatic at the momentum that is being built around it. Along with our partners — Sumter County Schools and South Georgia Technical College (SGTC) — there are committed team members working daily on making this academy a reality for our community and we are blessed with their involvement.”
Lunneborg is joined by a dynamic leadership team of business leaders who are spearheading the CCA effort — Kim Christmas, vice president of Human Resources and Community Relations at PharmaCentra and Concentra Solutions, and Barbara Grogan, executive director of the Sumter County Development Authority. This team is guided by the expertise of Russ Moore, of Seamless Education Associates, and over 100 business and community members who are dedicated to the college and career academy initiative.
With outreach efforts ongoing to neighboring school systems and their related partners, the partnership with SGTC, Sumter County Schools and One Sumter to establish a world-class workforce to service business and industry throughout the region is already seeing early results in advance of the September application to the Technical College System of Georgia.