GOOD NEWS: $1.2 million goes to Gullah Geechee preservation projects

Praise house in Beaufort County.

Staff reports  |  The director of a commission to preserve Gullah Geechee heritage says she is thankful (“t’engkful” in Gullah) for more than $1 million awarded over the last month to keep the culture alive in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

“This federal funding provides critical — and substantial — cornerstone resources our communities need to help finance and move forward major projects to document, preserve and share a more complete story of the Gullah Geechee while protecting endangered, heritage sites,” said Heather Hodges, executive director of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.  

“The immense contributions to the U.S. civil rights movement of the Gullah Geechee people on James, Johns and Wadmalaw Islands are still widely unknown, even in South Carolina.  Museums can’t share all of this South Carolina and U.S. history. Continued investment in the preservation of the actual, historic sites is necessary.”

On James Island, for example, community members and the Historic Charleston Foundation recently received $490,861 from the African American Civil Rights Grant Program to revitalize the Pine Tree Hotel in the historic Mosquito Beach District. During segregation, Gullah Geechee community members were unable to use nearby Folly Beach and, instead, turned “Mosquito Beach” on King Flats Creek in the historic Sol Legare neighborhood into a popular waterfront destination.  The entire district was recently nominated to the National Register of Historic Places.

In Georgia, the corridor has partnered with Cumberland Island National Seashore Park on a two-year, $200,000 project to better document and interpret the lives of the African and Gullah Geechee men, women and children who once lived on the island. And a St. Augustine, Fla., cultural center in a historic high school recently got a $500,000 federal grant for building repairs.

Other recent news stories of note:

Parks and Recreation. The Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission (CCPRC)  continues to be among the elite park and recreation agencies in the country as evidenced in competing a five-year national re-accreditation process.  CPRC Executive Director David Bennett said re-accreditation, received in a September national conference, “embodies our vision to be distinguished as a nationally accredited and financially sustainable park and recreation agency through our commitment to preserving our natural, historical and cultural resources, and offering a clean, safe and exceptional visitor experience that is accessible to all.”

Big anti-opioid grant to MUSC.  The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) has received an $833,190 grant from Helping to End Addiction Long-term, or the NIH HEAL Initiative. The MUSC award is one of 375 grant awards across 41 states made by the National Institutes of Health in fiscal year 2019 to apply scientific solutions to reverse the national opioid crisis. The grant will run for a one-year period. “Through this award, MUSC investigators will join a national network of researchers exploring innovative treatments for chronic pain,” said Dr. Kathleen Brady, MUSC vice president for research. “Our goal is to make these state-of-the-art pain treatments available to benefit the citizens of South Carolina.”

New tax payment website.  Charleston County residents have access to a new tax payment website providing taxpayers better navigation, new options and lower costs to use a credit card for payment.  “We have been working hard over the last two years to make the online tax system’s search function easier to use and more accurate, as well as reduce any additional cost for the convenience of paying online,” said  Charleston County Treasurer Mary Tinkler. “I am particularly excited about the e-check feature, a new and free online option for taxpayers.”

Children in high poverty.  Some 130,000 South Carolina children live in concentrated poverty now.  While that’s 18,000 fewer children in high poverty than five years earlier, 12 percent of our kids — about one in eight children — remain in high poverty areas, according to new data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.  The U.S. Census Bureau’s data snapshot of children living in high poverty , was released this week by S.C. Children’s Trust, which along with state agencies, coordinates with  South Carolina Child Well-Being Coalition. More from Statehouse Report.

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