Golden LEAF Foundation Awards $405,000 to Beaufort County Community College

The Golden LEAF Foundation has awarded Beaufort County Community College (Beaufort CCC) $405,000 to expand its nursing programs, strengthening the healthcare workforce in eastern North Carolina. The funding will provide essential equipment, training resources, and instructional materials to enhance student learning experiences.

“The Golden LEAF Foundation is pleased to support Beaufort County Community College’s strategy to expand their nursing programs,” said Golden LEAF President, Chief Executive Officer Scott T. Hamilton. “The new equipment and resources will help the college produce more nurses to address the critical shortage of healthcare professionals in Beaufort County and the surrounding region.” Funding was awarded through Golden LEAF’s Open Grants Program, which provided $1.7 million to five projects focused on workforce preparedness, agriculture, and economic development. Other recipients included Carteret Community College, Elizabeth City Pasquotank Public Schools, Harrells Christian Academy, and the City of Whiteville.

“This investment from the Golden LEAF Foundation will make a significant impact on our nursing programs and the communities we serve,” said Dr. Dave Loope, President of Beaufort CCC. “By enhancing our capacity, we can educate more nursing students to fill critical healthcare positions in eastern North Carolina, improving access to quality care and strengthening the regional workforce.”

Beaufort CCC’s nursing program expansion will focus on retaining students in the program to help them progress toward completion and graduation. This will boost the number of nurses entering the field and comes at a critical time as healthcare facilities face workforce shortages.

These enhancements will provide students with realistic, hands-on training opportunities that closely align with modern healthcare environments. Through state-of-the-art simulation experiences, students will develop confidence, critical thinking, clinical reasoning, technical proficiency, and clinical judgment—key skills required for success in the workforce. Performance evaluations during simulations will assess student competency and readiness for clinical settings.

The new technology will provide hands-on training in critical care, mental health, pediatrics, obstetrics, and community health, ensuring students gain the practical experience needed to excel in diverse healthcare settings.

Recent nursing cohorts at Beaufort CCC have seen 100% of graduates secure employment within six months of graduation, primarily in regional healthcare roles. Beaufort CCC works closely with local healthcare providers to address workforce shortages and create purposeful, sustainable careers for its students.

With this funding support, the college aims to achieve accreditation through the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL). This recognition will establish Beaufort CCC as a leader in high-quality simulation-based nursing education.

About Golden LEAF

The Golden LEAF Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1999 to receive a portion of North Carolina’s funding from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with cigarette manufacturers. For 25 years, Golden LEAF has worked to increase economic opportunity in North Carolina’s rural and tobacco-dependent communities through leadership in grantmaking, collaboration, innovation, and stewardship as an independent and perpetual foundation.

The Foundation has provided lasting impact to tobacco-dependent, economically distressed, and rural areas of the state by helping create 68,000 jobs, more than $780 million in new payrolls, and more than 98,000 workers trained or retrained for higher wages.

For more information about Golden LEAF and its programs, visit GoldenLEAF.org.