Grant Bridges Education & Industry in Turner County
Ashburn, Georgia – Ashburn Turner county educators are given the opportunity to engage with the community in a unique and impactful way.
The Georgia Chamber of Commerce has made a gracious donation to the Ashburn-Turner County Chamber of Commerce. This donation has enabled the chamber to create opportunities local educators to visit and learn from local businesses.
“So, the grant was an opportunity given to us by the Georgia Chamber of commerce. I believe we got around $20,000 and that was given to us in the spring. and i even considered what we wanted to do with it. and we really felt like having an impact with our educators would have the most impact as far as workforce development. So, we wanted to take what we had done in the past with our business administrators and really just expand it. We think it’ll be a great opportunity for our teachers to really get that hands-on experience,” says Miller.
Eva Joiner, work-based learning & CTAE director for Turner County Schools, elaborates on how this initiative will impact teaching methods and curriculum.
” I think the biggest asset that our workforce here has are our local businesses and industries here in our community is the school system, and it is a great partnership that we have working with our local chamber. and we initially did an industry tour with only building administrators in our district office staff, and we learned firsthand what the needs are for our local businesses and what type of soft skills and employability skills that they are looking for. So, it was important to our administrators and our district to bring those findings back and implement programing and our school system. soft skills are those skills, they’re not instinct. right. So, they have to be taught. they have to be taught how to work in a group. they have to be taught time management. they have to be taught proper dress, proper interview skills, things of that nature. So, when teachers learn firsthand what our employers are looking for, they can go back into their classrooms and make those lessons relevant and be able to tell our students why they need to learn these skills,” says Joiner.
Ashley Miller, executive director for the Ashburn-Turner County Chamber of Commerce, provides further details about the industries participating in the program.
“We’ve had a wide variety of interests. even some of our local agencies, like our police department, our library, have been interested in being involved as well as our industries. So, our steel manufacturing, our agricultural industries. In small business, the Piggly Wiggly, the newspaper. So, there’s a wide variety of interests. So, if there’s any teacher that wants to get involved, that wants to see what life could have been like if they chose another profession, now’s the time. If there’s anything they want to do that we haven’t necessarily got signed up for, we can definitely reach out and do that as we expand the program,” says Miller.
Tuner County Schools and the Ashburn-Turner County chamber express their gratitude.
“This initiative is very important as we look to bring more business and industry here to turner county and Ashburn. So, we are grateful for the funding that was provided so that we can make unique programming and further strengthen our partnerships with our local businesses here in our community,” says Joiner.
“I just want to say thank you definitely for your investment in rural Georgia. I know Ashburn and Turner County, we’re a small community, but we still definitely need the support, and we appreciate the investment here and hopefully we’re able to take that and turn it into something really impactful that will impact the teachers and the students and have that generational change,” says Miller.
De’Andra Jacobs reporting
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