Her role encompasses 2Gen outreach initiatives, stakeholder engagement, and building relationships with Georgia’s business community. She oversees a dynamic team dedicated to fostering collaborations across the state to enhance early childhood education opportunities, building capacity and awareness among local leaders, ensuring that early education remains a priority in every community.
Jill has been instrumental in the design and implementation of DECAL’s Community Impact Grants, including the groundbreaking Expanding Parents’ Access to Nontraditional Delivery (EXPAND) grants. These grants provide community-level supports for Georgia’s children ages birth to 8 and their families, increase opportunities for sustainable community collaboration and create new opportunities for communities to innovate at the local level to address critical needs.
Before she joined DECAL in 2015, she served as the program coordinator for the Early Childhood Care and Education program at Wiregrass Georgia Technical College and taught Georgia’s Pre-K in the Coffee County School District. She and her husband, Christian, are parents to three grown children and call Statesboro their home.