"Sixty years is just the beginning," said Goodwill Southeast Georgia President and CEO Jason Marshall at the organization's annual meeting, which also commemorated this milestone year. A video reflected Goodwill SEGA's impact and growth over the last six decades across the 33 counties it serves: From building new headquarters in 1982 to establishing its first Job Connection Center in 2000 (now known as Opportunity Centers ) and the 2015 opening of G-Force Manufacturing in Pooler.
While the meeting at Savannah Technical College's Eckberg Auditorium took time to look back, it quickly shifted to looking "Beyond 60." Marshall said there is "still so much need within communities" in terms of workforce development opportunities to move people out of poverty. When he needed "inspiration and aspiration," he said, he turned to keynote speaker, Goodwill Kentucky President and CEO Amy Luttrell.
Luttrell has served at multiple Goodwill locations since 1979, serving in the top role in Kentucky for the past 11 years. Marshall called her a leader who can help Goodwill SEGA and the Savannah area "imagine the possibilities" of the future by looking at Kentucky's recent success.
A 'holistic' model for opportunity
Luttrell offered three key points of insight on how to address poverty.
- A piecemeal approach to poverty does not work. "To really move that needle, we really need a holistic approach."
- Opportunities should be extended as broadly as possible to increase the likelihood that people will take advantage of them. "You really cannot tell who will and won't take advantage of an opportunity when it's a good opportunity."
- Everyone is capable of doing more than they think they can , especially when they "aim high and work together."
All three of these points were came together last year in West Louisville, she recounted, with the development of the Norton Healthcare Goodwill Opportunity Campus , a "20-acre community resource hub" that houses wraparound service providers tackling education, job training, childcare, health care, mentoring, and professional financial and legal services. The co-location barbering and dental schools at the campus, according to Luttrell, not only serve to connect people to opportunities, they provide much needed services to individuals trying to "make their way out of poverty and live a better life."
She said Goodwill Kentucky spent roughly six months to gain input and buy-in from the West Louisville community. She said Goodwill consulted 35 to 40 focus groups and also sought feedback from Opportunity Center managers in the area since they were talking to the residents everyday.
"We asked them what they did and didn't like about their community, what kinds of needs they saw, what they thought we should be doing, and we asked them how we could be a good neighbor," she said.
Several of Goodwill Kentucky's key takeaways informed the design of the Opportunity Campus, which opened in March 2024. The organization's website notes a vast economic impact that includes potentially 200+ jobs created in West Louisville at an average annual wage of $59,000. Career services programs are "expected to have a cumulative annual impact of $18.7 million by helping to place more than 600 job seekers into full-time employment with businesses throughout the region that pay a minimum of $13 per hour."
In December 2024 the campus won the Greater Louisville, Inc. Visionary Award , which noted that the campus "hosted over 2,500 visits with members of the community and provided over 35,000 services" in its first year.
The Opportunity Campus model inspires Savannah
The holistic, centrally located approach to resources inspired Marshall to say Thursday that he was "proud but unsatisfied." He underscored that Goodwill is a "98% self-funded local nonprofit organization where 87 cents of each dollar earned is redirected into local economic impact." Goodwill SEGA employs 700 associates across its territory while providing skills training, educational services and career preparation to more than 5,000 individuals annually.
Despite doing what he called "wonderful things" for Southeast Georgia, he felt Goodwill SEGA and its community partners can still do more. He noted that his choice of the word "unsatisfied" came from Edgar J. Helms , Goodwill's original founder. Marshall said Helms "presented us the charge to remain unsatisfied until all those who are struggling find their way to an abundant life."
Marshall said those words propelled solutions that created community-wide opportunities through Goodwill's "social enterprise model." He envisions the organization's next great solution is to bring an Opportunity Campus to eastside Savannah. Land has been identified for a ground-up build. Although no formal agreements have been made, Marshall said discussions have been held with partners such as YMCA of Coastal Georgia about health and wellness services and Savannah Tech around educational opportunities.
Early discussions have also been held with other potential partners, such as Senior Citizens Inc ., Brightside Advocacy , Georgia Legal Services , and Consumer Credit Counseling of Savannah . Additionally, Goodwill SEGA has been exploring partnerships for financial, mental health and medical services. "Everybody's kind of waiting for that plan to get locked down," he said referring to securing the site approval, which he feels confident will happen in the late summer, setting them up for a potential open date in late 2027.
"We're going to make this a reality...but we can't do it by ourselves," Marshall said. He asked attendees to lend "your voice, your support, your knowledge and your influence" to the development of the project. He expressed a desire to ensure a Savannah-based campus plan "is big enough, bold enough, and thorough enough to support individuals in the most beneficial way."
A message of hope was woven throughout the gathering, and Luttrell emphasized that hope had to be backed by "a conviction that you really can have a different kind of life if you're willing to work hard for it."
In his final remarks, Marshall carried that Kentucky inspiration home. "They brought the message of hope as having only positive expectations and that where hope begins, poverty ends."
Joseph Schwartzburt is the education and workforce development reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at JSchwartzburt@gannett.com and JoeInTheKnow_SMN on Instagram .
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah-area Goodwill announces bold vision for Opportunity Campus at annual meeting
