LOOGOOTEE — An ambitious fundraising drive will bring a business education program to Martin County. Community leaders have engaged 38 donors at $1,000 each to provide financial support to the Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities program for the next three years. The commitments mean the Martin County CEO program will be starting this fall.
“As of now we have met our investment,” said Martin CEO steering committee member Jessica Potts with the Martin County Alliance for Economic Growth. “We are good to go to get this program implemented in August 2024.”
The fund drive is the second part of an effort to begin offering CEO classes to students from Loogootee and Shoals high schools. Earlier organizers raised $35,000 for curriculum, marketing and website assistance.
“We are still taking donations even though we reached our goal,” said Potts. “National organizers of the program set the minimum at 35 and we have 38 donors. The say we should try to put together 50 supporters.”
The program helps students develop self confidence and interpersonal skills that are keys to developing new businesses. It also exposes those students to opportunities that are already available in Martin County.
“We do not have a huge business community to support this. There were individual donors. Some have grand kids in school and think this kind of education is important,” said Potts. “It is amazing. I feel like any time we get something the community believes in we will come together and support the big initiatives.”
With the money in place to get the program going the organizing committee’s next order of business is to find a facilitator for the class.
“Our next phase will be to hire someone to run the program,” said Potts. “The board of directors will be reaching out to hire that person, probably in March. We will begin advertising to fill that spot in the spring.”
The CEO program in Martin County will be unique to that area, but it will also be similar to the successful CEO program in Daviess County and other programs around the country that are tied in with the national organization.
“It is awesome to know we will be able to get this started,” said Potts.
“A lot of people questioned whether Martin County would be able to pull this off because it is an expensive program. It is also an important program for the county and the kids in the community as well. It is another accomplishment where I can say I am very proud of Martin County coming together and getting it done.”
In many communities that have begun CEO programs, the students have returned and taken their skills and opened new businesses that brought new jobs and investment to the community. The hope locally is that this new program can have a similar impact in the Loogootee and Shoals area.
“We are excited to get this opportunity started here in Martin County,” said Potts.
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