SC’s Darla Moore to fund a $25 million education center in Lake City

South Carolina mega-philanthropist Darla Moore will be starting her own educational center in Florence County.

The Continuum, which is set to enroll its first group of students in August, isn’t a new school, per se. Rather, it’s a building where Francis Marion University and Florence-Darlington Technical College will serve as a one-stop shop for an associate’s degree and everything short of it, said Darla Moore Foundation spokeswoman Jeanette Altman.

For example, say a student wants to go to technical school to repair small planes, but while in school that student decides he or she wants to design planes. The Continuum would make that transition “as seamless as one classroom across the hall from another,” said Tucker Mitchell, a spokesman for Francis Marion.

“The vision here is for there to be more opportunities for students... rather than being on one track,” said Mitchell said. “This is very much a Darla Moore thing.”

Moore has been a prolific donor to S.C. higher education. To name a few: her $75 million donation to the University of South Carolina paid for roughly three-fourths the cost of the business school named after Moore. She has also donated $10 million to Clemson University and $1 million to Claflin University.

Moore, a USC alumna, made her fortune as a top executive for Rainwater Inc., a private investment company.

The 46,000-square-foot building, which will include a business incubator and is expected to be completed in May, will cost $25 million, according to the news release. The building and the land Continuum is on is owned by the Greater Lake City Community Development Office, a nonprofit to which the Darla Moore Foundation is a major donor, Altman said.

Moore will chair the board of the school. The CEO of her charity, the Darla Moore Foundation, will sit on the board alongside Interim Florence-Darlington President Ed Bethea and Francis Marion President Fred Carter.

There is no set tuition and no additional fees for taking courses through the Continuum. Rather, students will pay the schools for the classes they take, Altman said.

“Major employers, everyone from Volvo to Boeing, inform me they need a better-trained, better-educated workforce to sustain their growth in our state,” Moore said in a news release. “That’s a vital need we must meet. I believe The Continuum will fast become a model for how that can be done.”