Meet Donor Jim Adams

Southern Regional Depends on Donors

Jim Adams has been donating time and money to Southern Regional for the past decade.

In 1999, he became a Southern Regional Health System Board member and also joined the board of the Southern Regional Medical Center Foundation, which builds philanthropic support to help further Southern Regional's mission.

"I felt it was my civic duty," Adams said.

He previously served on the Clayton County Hospital Authority and he has always enjoyed being involved in his community.

Adams, an engineer who runs his own business, puts a lot of time and energy into supporting Southern Regional. Adams prefers to serve Southern Regional to the fullest extent rather than being involved in many different charitable causes.

"I have found over the years that you can make more of an impact when you really concentrate on one area," Adams said.

Health System board members are given a stipend for each board meeting and committee meeting they attend - sometimes as many as five or six in a month. Over the past 10 years, Adams has donated all of the stipends he has received from each Board meeting to the Foundation.

Adams, who serves on the board's finance committee, says donations are crucial to helping the non-profit hospital serve the community. About one-third of the hospital's budget goes to indigent and charity care for patients who cannot afford to pay for their own healthcare, Adams explains.

"The foundation helps make up some of that difference," Adams said. "The foundation accepts gifts from those who have to help those who have not."

Supporting the hospital is important to Adams as a Jonesboro resident, but it's also important to him as a business owner.

Adams says healthcare is extremely important to the local economy because companies always look at healthcare and education when they consider locating to a new area.

"It has a tremendous impact on economic development," Adams said. "If we do not maintain a good school system and a good healthcare system, people are not going to come here."

This means that support for Southern Regional has a two-fold significance.

"Maintaining good healthcare in our local community is imperative - not just for you and your family, but also for the livelihood of our county," he said.