In Berrien County, Georgia, neighbors still call one another by name and are eager to get involved. With 19,000 residents, the population is relatively small, “but with that smallness comes such a sense of community,” says Lisa Smart, Executive Director of the Berrien County Chamber of Commerce. “We’re the place where everybody knows each other but also wants to help each other. We’re a small town with a big heart.”
The community was tested last fall when Hurricane Helene hit, leaving a wake of devastation throughout the region. “Our community has never experienced this type of hurricane,” Smart tells us. “It was a very strong category 1 when it hit us, and as far inland as we are, we’ve never experienced that kind of wind or damage.” To make matters worse, this was the third hurricane to impact the community over the past two years, “which is kind of unbelievable,” considering the county’s south-central location within Georgia. “We’re so far inland that this was not something we ever thought we would experience.”
The local pecan industry was hit particularly hard, and businesses and homes were also damaged. “We had over 100 homes that were total losses and then about another 600 homes that received damages of some sort,” says Smart. “It was widespread throughout our community and the surrounding counties. It didn’t just impact us; it impacted our entire region.”
This widespread impact meant that Berrien County residents had to take care of themselves. “It wasn’t something that had happened [only] in our county and we could run one county over and get help—there was no help. The majority of the county was without power for two weeks, and we had portions of the county that were without power for almost a month.”
Residents rose to the challenge. “The response to this disaster was unbelievable,” Smart says. As a volunteer coordinator for disaster relief, she witnessed firsthand how people lined up to offer assistance. “We had all ages of people showing up just saying, ‘Hey, what can I do? How can I help?’ And then our church community, the way they stepped forward in such a massive way to feed people, was unbelievable.”
When Smart reached out to these local churches about food donations, they told her, “We’re already doing it. We’re already cooking meals. We’re feeding the volunteers. We’re feeding people that [are] in rural communities.” This was crucial because in these rural areas, “when you’re without power, that means you’re without water also because, for a lot of people, it works off of their wells. So people had no way to cook or to feed their families. Grocery stores weren’t open. The fact that these churches were coming forward and preparing and serving meals, it was tremendous. It was very, very humbling to watch the response that was happening in our community.”
And the support didn’t stop there. “We had big industry stepping forward and giving money saying, ‘How can we go buy food? Can we bring food to these churches for them to cook?’ It was every single aspect of the community that stepped forward and said, ‘I want to help in some way.’ It was completely unbelievable to watch.”
The community has such a big heart, in fact, that its members wanted to help those who had an even greater need. “Even in the midst of what was going on here and the fact that we were dealing with things here, [people recognized that] North Carolina got hit even harder than we did,” says Smart. “And what I started seeing in our community was [a desire to] go beyond our walls. People just started fundraising and doing drives to get food to take to North Carolina. People that were still without power were saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got this.’ And we had a local farming family that started doing weekly trips to North Carolina and they’re still doing them. They did one last week where they’re loading a semi-trailer up full of supplies and taking it to North Carolina. So, it’s not just a heart for our community. We have people here that really care about people, and they want to help people.”
Community support has also extended to small businesses. “Our small businesses got hit really hard with this,” she says. “I created a 501(c)(3) so we would have a way for people to donate. And it was tremendous! We received donations from all over the country; people I’ve never heard of made donations to us.” The team invited any business in the county to apply for grants from the fund. The Berrien County Foundation distributed over $20,000 in total, with grant recipients receiving $1,200 apiece.
This might seem like a relatively small amount of cash, “but for somebody that didn’t have two weeks of income and on top of that had damages, this was huge,” Smart says. For example, one recipient was unable to pay the workers repairing her building—until that grant came in, right when she needed it the most, making it possible to complete those much-needed repairs and get back to doing business.
To be sure, Berrien County has a long history of supporting business. Buck Pegg, owner and founder of industry-leading Chaparral Boats, recognized this and relocated his business to take advantage of all the community has to offer. “When I made the decision to move Chaparral Boats to Nashville, Georgia from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I have never looked back,” he says. “It was the best business decision I have ever made. Nashville welcomed my company and offered the best team of dedicated and hard workers I had ever known. We have grown from a manufacturing facility that began here with 32,000 square feet to facilities in excess of 1.4 million square feet. We are the largest single site boat builder in the world and have dominant national market share. We have over 600 employees and 262 boat dealerships representing Chaparral and Robalo around the world. I am proud to say we employ multi-generational families and we strive every day to give back to our employees and community by offering our support for school functions, charities, and in the form of scholarships awarded to the sons and daughters of our employees to date in excess of 1.4 million,” says Pegg.
“They have been a huge, huge asset to our community,” Smart adds. “They’re by far our largest industry, and then they bring so many more with them, support industries for them.”
Berrien County is also home to a robust healthcare sector, and its South Georgia Medical Center (SGMC) facility is in the midst of a major upgrade. “That has just been huge for us because in most places you’re seeing rural hospitals go away,” Smart says. “And here, we are doing a $15,000,000 expansion which has created a state-of-the-art ER right here in Berrien County.”
“Our hospital’s expansion and the addition of a new Emergency Department reflect a strong commitment to the health and well-being of Berrien County and its neighboring communities,” says SGMC Health Administrator Kevin Moore. “This new, two-story facility will provide 24/7 emergency services in a modern, cutting-edge environment, featuring state-of-the-art rooms and advanced imaging and diagnostic technology to deliver faster and more accurate results. We are excited for the continued growth at SGMC Health Berrien and look forward to better serving our region with enhanced care and resources.”
Looking ahead, this community is committed to maintaining a strong workforce by supporting young people. Berrien Ready, a weeklong program to help prepare students for the workforce, gives high school seniors hands-on learning opportunities, forklift certification, and OSHA 10 certification. The program also helps with soft skills. “We create a résumé for them; we do interview skills with them,” says Smart, with many students finding jobs right away. “We’ve had really good success with it.”
The closeknit community is known for its popular public events and, after bouncing back from Hurricane Helene, is already welcoming visitors again. The county just held the Berrien County Roundup Rodeo for the sixteenth year in a row. “It is a fundraiser for the Chamber and the proceeds from it go to help small businesses,” Smart explains. “We bring in anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000 people for the weekend. In a community our size, that’s huge.” The county’s harvest festival is another big annual event that brings in thousands of visitors each year.
After proving its ability to overcome major challenges, the community is well prepared for whatever comes next. “We have a very bright outlook in Berrien County,” Smart says. “We are seeing growth and we’re having expansions of local industry. We’re looking at new industry and business moving into our community. We’re excited about our future here.”
