Posted: Wednesday, October 8, 2003 12:00 am
Last week we published a story about the new Health Career Center at Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital.
On the surface, it was about an addition to the hospital with an education focus.
More significantly, it was about the impact that individuals and organizations can have on improving the community when they work together.
Economic development has been an issue here for nearly a generation. Even during the good times of the 1990s Lebanon and East Linn County sought mostly in vain to increase the number of local family wage jobs.
Although new employers are needed still, some of the jobs we've been looking for were already here. What was needed was training so local people would qualify.
That's what the Health Career Center does, but it took a cooperative effort to bring it about. In this case, the partners are Samaritan Health Services, Linn-Benton Community College, and the Lebanon Community Hospital Foundation.
SHS has the jobs but needs trained people to fill them. LBCC is able to provide the training. The LCH Foundation pledged community support in the form of dollars to help build the facility.
Maybe with more of that kind of teamwork in the community we can find other resources that area already here.