Pursuing Possible
Advancing Stories & Renewing Lives
The Pursuing Possible campaign will propel Shepherd to new heights. A catastrophic injury or debilitating illness can seem like an abrupt end of a story. But where others see the end, Shepherd Center sees a new chapter. Your generous support will make it possible to transform even more lives.
Create More “I Cans”
Shepherd Center is pursuing our most ambitious campaign yet. We’re adding more beds and buildings; we’re expanding and advancing neurorehabilitation in ways once considered unimaginable. To ensure Shepherd Center remains the premier destination for catastrophic care and rehabilitation, we’ve set an ambitious goal and we need you to help us get there.
“I Can’t Walk On My Own Two Feet,
but I Can Run On My New Ones.”
The average national rehabilitation center return-to-home rate is 70%. At Shepherd, it’s 94%. No wonder patients like Cindy, and their families, are so eager to seek treatment here. Since graduating from Shepherd, Cindy hasn’t just survived; she’s thrived—doing CrossFit five days a week and running half-marathons. With your help, we can help more patients thrive and realize countless “I Cans”.
Transformational Priorities
To continue pursuing all that is possible for our patients and their families, we must strengthen our established foundation and ensure continued excellence into the future – not only as we prepare for 2025, but as we envision what Shepherd must look like in 2035, 2045, and beyond. Shepherd Center leadership has identified two overarching strategic objectives that we must now address:
Increase Patient Access
Shepherd Center currently turns away several hundred medically appropriate inpatients each year because of limited bed capacity. Similarly, the wait time for many of our outpatient programs is measured in months rather than hours. Our first objective is to expand our facilities so that, for decades to come, we can provide access to Shepherd Center’s services for all prospective patients when they need our help.
Improve the Patient & Family Experience
Shepherd’s patient outcomes are widely regarded as industry-leading, but we must continually seek to improve the experience that we provide to both patients and their family members in order to remain the preeminent neurorehabilitation facility in the world. Accordingly, our second objective is to modernize and enhance the services that Shepherd Center provides to both patients and families to ensure that every experience delivers the best possible outcome and the highest level of post-treatment independence.
A Look at What’s to Come
Pursuing Possible will transform Shepherd Center’s footprint and the way we serve our patients and community for years to come.
Construction Progress
November 2024, The Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation continues progressing with the internal finishes and landscaping. We’re excited to start moving into the building in April 2025!
October 2024, And they’re in! After a beautiful ribbon-cutting, the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences are open, and the first families have moved in. They can now stay in housing for the full length of their loved one’s stay at Shepherd.
August 2024, What a difference 15 months makes! In April 2023, we raised the tower crane to start building the Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation (MCAR), and now it’s come down. The construction team will shift its focus full-time to completing the inside of the building and putting in landscaping, including a new garden. The building’s completion is scheduled for Spring 2025.
July 2024, Arthur M. Blank Family Residences’ interior finishes and exterior landscaping are progressing toward the September ribbon-cutting and October opening!
June 2024, The Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation construction is steadily evolving and taking shape.
May 2024, The exterior and interior of the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences continue to move ahead. Excitement fills the air!
April 2024, The James H. Shepherd, Jr. Bridge From “I Can’t to I Can” continues to come together as construction progresses.
March 2024, The ongoing construction work at the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences is gradually transforming into an extraordinary and impressive structure.
February 2024, The James H. Shepherd, Jr. Bridge From “I Can’t to I Can” continues to take shape.
January 2024, The construction at the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences is progressing smoothly, shaping into something extraordinary.
December 2023, Reaching higher heights! Progress continues on the Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation construction.
November 2023, We’re excited to announce that we’ve reached the top and placed the last beam on the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences! This building will significantly enhance the patient and family experience at Shepherd Center.
October 2023, Progress continues for the Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation construction. An average of one floor is poured per month. The 3rd floor will begin soon.
September 2023, The Arthur M. Blank Family Residences continues to rise to higher heights. The 15th-floor resident clubroom roof terrace has a clear view of Atlanta’s urban forest, looking east over Peachtree Road.
August 2023, Concrete, and more concrete! For both the Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation and the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences, floors are being constructed. As progress continues, excitement grows in tandem.
April 26, 2023, marks a significant Pursuing Possible campaign milestone! The tower crane is going up, up, up at the future home of the Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation.
With both construction sites well underway, there is no limit to what we can do as we pursue what’s possible for our patients and their families!
Site preparation for the new Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation is underway!
On February 10, 2023, Jamie Shepherd had the honor of starting the demo of the Sunoco gas station, which marks the official beginning of the construction for the new Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation. Acquiring the former Sunoco gas station property, which has access to a traffic light, was an important investment made by Shepherd to ensure our patients, families, and staff could enter and exit safely.
The Marcus Center for Advanced Rehabilitation, a new building planned for the main campus will allow us to increase patient access and improve the patient and family experience in several ways, including growing our day programs and outpatient services as well as creating space for Shepherd Center’s new 30,000-square-foot Innovation Institute.
January 5, 2023, was a very exciting day and just the beginning of great things to come as we continue to provide extraordinary care and service for our patients and their families. On this day, on the construction site at 1860 Peachtree Road, the tower crane was installed and is ready to work on building the new Arthur M. Blank Family Residences.
Demolition is now complete at the 1860 Peachtree Road site, the future home of the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences. The 2018 land acquisition and subsequent expansion was championed by Shepherd Center co-founder, the late James H. Shepherd, Jr., who passed away in December 2019.
The new construction of the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences will add approximately 160 housing units for patient families, more than doubling the amount of current housing available and allowing all patient families traveling to Shepherd Center to stay in donor-funded housing the entire length of their loved one’s stay.
Graduate Stories
