Bill strives to bring more retirees to city

Capitals, columns and culture — that and Milledgeville’s exceptional climate are on their way to be certified as the perfect blend for retirees nationwide.

Rep. Rusty Kidd introduced a bill early last month that would create a pilot program to test what state retirement community certification would do for marketing Georgia to retirees.

“A lot of smaller communities would welcome anything they could do to be on a state of Georgia website. Somebody from up north or along the coast down in Florida might look on the Georgia website and see that they’re a certified retirement community,” Kidd told the Macon Telegraph.

According to City Councilman Steve Chambers, the pilot program is not Milledgeville’s first attempt to bring in retirees.

“We’ve had a committee through the Partners for Progress, which is an arm of the Chamber of Commerce, that’s been working on this for probably about three years and trying to get us more in line for areas of retirement,” Chambers said.

One of the goals outlined by Partners for Progress is to promote and market the city as a retirement community, specifically to become a nationally recognized Retirement City and first approved Georgia Certified Retirement destination.

In addition to these efforts, the appeal of Georgia and its neighboring states has been on the rise for the last several years.

“Georgia for years and the southeast in general has become a point of interest. It used to be that everyone wanted to go to Florida,” Chambers said. “Now it’s more up into the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. We have such moderate climates that especially people up North — that’s all they think about is getting away from that cold weather and snow.  Everybody went to Florida then several years ago all the hurricanes came through and all that people were flocking out of Florida…All of a sudden Georgia became really attractive. We don’t have near all that mess but we still have a moderate climate, still have nice coastal areas. We have the mountains.”

Georgia College’s presence also provides added incentive for retirees.

“One thing that is attractive. . . to people that are retiring is a continuation of the lifestyle of learning,” Chambers said. “With all the notoriety of Alzheimer’s and all this going on people understand more that though they are 70 or 65 year old or whenever they decide to retire, they don’t just become a couch potato and sit down. Things that they are looking for aren’t necessarily entertainment but things that are stimulating.”

Georgia College fills this need with its Learning in Retirement Program. The program provides local and regional opportunities for retirees to remain active. Members have taken trips to Savannah, Charleston and the Fox Theatre in Atlanta; visited Georgia College’s Museum of Natural History and Planetarium; and carpooled to theatres in Macon. Some members also participate in the program’s book club and writers group. While the program does not offer classes, its members hear from professors about topics ranging from The Galapagos to the Middle East.

According to Carole Stickline the Office Manager of the Learning in Retirement Program, the program is important to the lives of retirees and highly valued by its members.

“There are some communities that don’t have other than a senior citizens center where mainly they play bingo or whatever,” Stickline said. “But this opportunity here at GCSU, it affords us a wealth of knowledge from all the professors…You can go on trips; you can not go on trips. We can go to the Centennial Center and exercise or take aerobics. And there are some people that just go to lunch; some people just go on trips. You can do as much or little as you like.”

Stickline, who is originally from Maryland and retired from Woodstock, Ga., learned about the retirement program from a newspaper advertisement.

“You have people like me that come from somewhere and just want to meet new people and do new things,” Stickline said. “I don’t have a college background. I was a radioactive technologist for 38 years so it’s nice for me to get away from medicine and learn about the Galapagos.”

The program currently has 108 members.

The bill introduced by Kidd would result in state funding for the city’s efforts and allow the city to “really become aggressive about (promoting itself as a retirement community)” according to Chambers. If the bill passes the Georgia Certified Retirement Community Program would be run by the Department of Economic Development.

Posted by Rebecca Burns on Mar 3 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.