BRADENTON, Fla. (WFTS) — Inside Premier Nursing Academy in Bradenton, it's hands on learning for the next group of Certified Nursing Assistant's.
Nursing student Chelsea Boatwright is finally following her dreams.
"I started my nursing 10 years ago when I was in a rough situation. Unfortunately, due to financial issues, I wasn't able to continue on and complete my life goal," she said. "I was a single mother at one point, wondering how am I going to feed my kids but also work at the same time."
Boatwright is one of the many students getting an opportunity to move into their dream job, all for free.
"With this program, it allows me to be able to go back to school and not have to shove out money. So I can continue my education because in the long run, it's going to pay off," she said.
Premier Nursing Academy offers a free six-week CNA course. That's appealing to students like Maria Magdalena Roman.
"I was like hoping that if someone offers you free, just to learn these skills, that was, for me, like a great surprise. But then I realized this company must be the most involved in helping the assistant nurses and older people to be further going up in their careers without them having to struggle because most people, most dropouts, are because of the financial problem. So then I realized this company is really serious. They do want people to make it. And they help. So that was the plus. That's why I chose actually this company," Roman said.
The classes are sponsored by healthcare facilities looking to close the nursing shortage. The Florida Hospital Association projects a shortage of 59,000 nurses by 2035.
Chris Palevich is the founder and president of Premier Nursing Academy. He said there's a lot of support for the program since it moved to Florida two and a half years ago.
"We've been able to scale to the point where we're graduating roughly 50 students every six weeks out of this campus, roughly about 100 every six weeks out of Pinellas. So we've been able to become part of the solution," he said.
Now the program is stretching beyond Manatee and Pinellas counties. A $10,000 donation from the Gale Healthcare Foundation is taking the program out of the classroom and putting it online.
"One of the biggest obstacles that we've had is each one of our campuses costs quite a bit of money. And we looked at how can we look at the state and be able to deliver our education across the entire state without having to build a campus in each one of the rural areas throughout Florida. So when looking at areas like Ocala or Arcadia, where areas there is a need for CNAs, we could then deliver through an online platform, our education, through our schooling to those areas to be able to provide new CNAs in markets that we were once unable to go to because of the cost of new campuses going into those areas," said Palevich.
Tony Braswell, President and Founder of Gale Healthcare Solutions, and Chair of the Foundation board, says his motivation is creating one more nurse to help stop the nursing shortage.
"Covid showed people that what's happening is nurses are broken. They're not burned out. They're not able to take bathroom breaks, and they're working nonstop because it's just getting worse every single day. Again, what do you do? Well, you ignore it, or you attack it. So Gale decided to help attack it."
He said the company's name comes from well-known nurse Florence Nightingale. Their goal is to follow in her footsteps.
"She is a woman who devoted her life to fixing a problem. This is a problem that we have to fix. And we can [fix it] with these ladies and these guys here," he said.
Both said they want to take more steps towards targeting high schoolers and young adults next.
