The Northwest Georgia Bank Foundation will donate $25,000 to the "We Have The Fever!" Chattanooga State Health Science Campaign over the next five years.

The Chattanooga State Foundation launched the campaign to raise a minimum of $3 million from the private sector as a match to the state's previous award of $28.5 million in an effort to expand by at least 25 percent the college's 20 programs in the health sciences, with a further projected increase of at least 40 percent in the registered nursing program. The campaign needs $1 million to endow scholarships, $1.57 million for new health science equipment and $430,000 for faculty and faculty professional development support.

Leonard Fant of Ringgold, Blood Assurance president & CEO and a Northwest Georgia Bank director, and Grady P.

Williams, a CPA with Lattimore Black Morgan & Cain, PC, serve as general co-chairmen of the fundraising campaign and also serve on the board of directors for the Chattanooga State Foundation. Both are longtime civic leaders and philanthropists serving dozens of non-profit boards throughout the region.

"The number one industry in our area as measured by employee-count is health services," said Mr. Fant. "In meeting the needs of this industry, we are also opening the doors to higher education and to a better life for so many in our community."

"The College is currently turning away hundreds of capable students each year due to facility and funding constraints," said Mr. Williams. "This expansion program will allow us to respond to an industry that is facing critical shortages, while helping our students pursue their dream to become a nurse, a radiologic technologist or pursue any of our 20 programs in health care."

The first step in soliciting pledges for the $3 million campaign began with the initial gifts division, led by Edna E. Varner, the Chattanooga State Foundation director responsible for obtaining pledges over four years from the faculty, staff and Board of Directors of the Foundation.

"We consider the faculty, staff and the Board to be members of the Chattanooga State 'family.' We believe the family must make their generous investments of time and money before we can ask others in the community to support the program," said Mr. Fant.

He said the faculty and staff alone "had set a challenging minimum target of $100,000 as their fair share of the total, and they have already surpassed their target with a total of $250,000 being pledged."

The next step to reaching the $3 million goal involved recruiting two more members of the Northwest Georgia Bank family — Franck and Farmer.

Duffy Franck, a business development officer at Northwest's Hamilton Place branch, has served since May as chairman of the Advanced Gifts Division for the Health Science Campaign, while Knox Farmer, vice president-branch operations & sales development with Northwest, has served as vice-chair alongside Scott Mattice of Morgan Stanley.

"We want future generations to have the same opportunities for character, friendship and quality education that the past has given us," said Mr. Franck during the campaign kick-off last spring. "Eighty-five percent of Chattanooga State's students are first generation college students. It would be a sad day for American education if we could not expand to meet the needs of the industry and provide education opportunities for so many who desire to become health care professionals."

The expansion program is designed to ensure that Chattanooga State will remain the largest area supplier of health care professionals, maintaining the college's reputation as a leader in meeting the needs of the community, officials said.

"The success of the campaign will determine Chattanooga State's future for many years to come," said Mr. Farmer. "The Advance Gifts Division pledges our unqualified support in meeting this challenge."

The U.S. Department of Labor projects a national need for more than one million new and replacement nurses by 2012. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, Tennessee will be able to meet only 53 percent of demand for registered nurses by 2020 if the same dynamics persist.

Dr. Jim Catanzaro, president of Chattanooga State, said the plan is to expand all of the impacted Nursing and Allied Health programs to address the short- and long-term shortages in the regional healthcare system.

"This translates into over 200 RNs, over 100 LPNs, and literally hundreds of key allied health professionals graduated each year," he said.

To date, approximately $200,000 remains to be raised to meet the $3 million goal, while the leaders in the Advance Gifts Division continue to diligently close this gap.