Georgia
Finding Solutions: Georgia Rehabilitation Institute supporting those with disabilities
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Making sure people with disabilities have the same support, resources and opportunities as everyone else – that’s the mission of the Georgia Rehabilitation Institute.
They once provided medical services through the Walton Rehabilitation Hospital which was sold back in 2013.
With the funds from the sale, GRI is finding solutions in supporting local groups with the same mission.
It’s a facility located on 13th Street with a strong message outside, “love where you live Augusta.”
It’s also a place you’re sure to find something to love on the inside.
The 523 gallery is filled with artwork created by artists with disabilities.
“Each year we add to it, so we continue to populate the gallery with artwork done by various people throughout the state of Georgia as well as local artists,” said Dennis Skelley, president/CEO of the Gerogia Rehabilitation Institute.
Skelley says the gallery is just one of several ways they support people with disabilities.
“The two things that always surface as top priorities are accessible housing and accessible transportation,” said Skelley. “Both of those are expensive endeavors and by partnering with organizations who are in that business or look provide those services we find that we can do more.”
Skelley says that’s why they’ve partnered with the augusta transit to upgrade bus stops by adding ramps and sidewalks.
“Last year we selected six locations and upgraded those bus stops to be fully accessible and we are in the process of choosing six more this year and we will do the same thing,” he said.
“We really want to make Augusta a community for people with disabilities to live, work and play,” said Skelley
As for accessible housing, GRI is currently working with Augusta Housing and Community Development to renovate six homes as well as build a new duplex that will be fully accessible.
A project we plan to follow once it gets going.
The 523 gallery is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For more information, you can visit the GRI’s website here.
Copyright 2025 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.
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Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
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