Healthy Learners announces Marge M. Rath as Director of Development
November 30, 2017
Healthy Learners is proud to announce and welcome Marge M. Rath as its development director to engage in development and donor relations. Rath will play an integral role in advancing the mission of Healthy Learners by developing donor strategies and increasing the organization’s fundraising efforts in major gift contributions, grants and special events.
Healthy Learners is a faith-based non-profit that connects children to care so that poor health is not an obstacle to doing well in school. Healthy Learners addresses poverty at its root, so that future generations can lift themselves, and their communities, to a better life. In Rath’s essential role, she has already started the process of engaging like-minded individuals to help grow the organization’s efforts to provide the community’s most vulnerable children access to basic health care services.
Prior to joining Healthy Learners, Rath served as the director of stewardship and development for St. Rose of Lima Parish & School, Portland, Oregon where she established the first stewardship program, developed a long-term strategy to support both school and parish and led both into a successful multi-million dollar capital campaign. She also has international experience working in the country of Panama with the Forum Foundation, overseeing the building of a 62 bed dormitory and high school for rural indigenous populations in Penonome, Cocle Province.
“I have always believed that education is the great equalizer; urban or rural, rich or poor, young or old or of any nationality. Education is what levels the playing field for equal opportunities,” said Rath. “The mission of Healthy Learners embodies my beliefs in the power of education by providing access to health care for our underserved students here in South Carolina. A faith-based environment and helping children; the best of both worlds.”
Rath graduated Magna Cum Laude from Illinois State University, graduate studies from Monterey Institute of International Studies in Central American Politics and Spanish and is certified in Fund Raising and Management from the Grantsmanship Center in Los Angeles, California. “We welcome Marge to South Carolina and Healthy Learners, and are excited to have someone with her expertise in establishing major gifts and individual contributions fundraising efforts on our team. Under her leadership, we look forward to growing our fund development efforts in all areas,” said Jo Pauling-Jones, executive director of Healthy Learners.
About Healthy Learners
Healthy Learners was founded in 1992 based on the belief that children learn better when they are healthy. A ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System, Healthy Learners has five programs that serve 151 schools across eleven South Carolina school districts. The counties served are Allendale, Dillon, Georgetown, Greenwood, Lexington and Richland. For more information, see healthylearners.com.
