Charleston Currents

Good news

GOOD NEWS: Star Wars Reads Day to launch Oct. 7

Staff reports | One of the most fun-filled days at Charleston County Public Library’s main library is just a few days away – Star Wars Reads Day is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 7. Also, you can see one of two Star Wars movies starting at 2 p.m.

Dress up your kids (or yourself) in your favorite Star Wars costume and join more than 1,500 people in an event that continues to grow in size and entertainment value. You might not think about your library doing this kind of thing, but if you visit, you’ll see lots of happy people (and some Stormtroopers), library officials say.

by Andy Brack · 09/25/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

TODAY’S FOCUS: Charleston’s bus evacuation system wasn’t ready for storm

By William J. Hamilton | Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit became aware that the Lowcountry’s Emergency Bus Evacuation System, another almost entirely separate transit system from Tri County Link and CARTA, wasn’t ready for a major hurricane on Sept. 5. We blogged the issue and informed local officials with a positively focused post on the Daily Kos, a national news site titled Power and Efficiency of Public Transit can save Low country lives before and after a Hurricane.

Hamilton
Neither CARTA bus drivers nor the public had any detailed knowledge of this alternative bus route system. Maps and schedules could have been handed out to transit riders, who often come from households without private cars and communities where cars are less available.

by Charleston Currents · 09/18/2017 · 3 comments · Focus, Good news

A satellite image of Hurricane Irma from Sept. 11, 2017. Photo from NOAA.gov.

TODAY’S FOCUS: Disaster recovery is a long-term commitment

By Kelly E. Cruise, special to Charleston Currents | When a disaster strikes, we witness the horror nature can inflict on us. The focus is often on the destroyed buildings, flooded streets or toppled trees. We see scared, displaced families, filling shelters and waiting in long lines for basic needs like water or food. It’s scary and we feel an urge to ‘do’ something. Thank God we do.

by Charleston Currents · 09/11/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

FOCUS: Preserve the Gullah showcases a past that’s under your nose

By Asia Batey, special to Charleston Currents | Preserve the Gullah has been a three-year effort which all started when three North Charleston locals were introduced to the Sol Legare area, and with the help of their mentor, discovered the wealth of knowledge and history within this small, hidden community.

In 2015 in the midst of statewide flooding and the subsequent damage to the cookie-cutter subdivisions and businesses throughout Charleston, Willie Heyward, Asia Batey and Milton Tyus witnessed homes built many decades ago — by hand, mind you — barely chip a single bit.

Within the first week of moving to the area, they met families who still gardened and ate from the land. They were taught how to dig up dandelion root and learned of its health benefits, and they discovered that lemon and lavender are perfectly functioning natural mosquito repellents.

by Special to Charleston Currents · 09/05/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

Carolina Youth Development Center’s Charleston Emergency Shelter, one of the organization’s three residential group homes serving children in foster care. Photo provided.

GOOD NEWS: Carolina Youth Development Center wins national accreditation

Staff reports | Carolina Youth Development Center (CYDC) has achieved national accreditation through the New York-based Council on Accreditation (COA).

CYDC is a nonprofit serving Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties that provides shelter and support services to child victims of abuse and neglect, as well as youth mentoring programs and a community-based prevention program that helps at-risk families access the resources they need to stay together.

Also inside: Good news for the RiverDogs, benefit for the Whiddon family; Great success for local telethon for Harvey relief; and how to get amnesty for overdue library fines.

by Charleston Currents · 09/05/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

Roosevelt departing the USS Indianapolis in Charleston on Dec. 15, 1936 following a cruise to South America.

FOCUS: Roosevelt could see Charleston’s popularity coming 80 years ago

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | When Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as assistant secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1920, he made several trips to Charleston to help “to build up, to some degree at least, this splendid Navy Yard in Charleston,” he recalled years later as president.

These days, the shuttered Navy Yard is a beehive of private and government activity as the North Charleston industrial area continues to redevelop. And the Navy’s presence continues to loom large with thousands of highly-trained specialists working at SPAWAR and in other facilities.

Back in 1935, Roosevelt landed in Charleston aboard the USS Houston after a fishing vacation in the Pacific and Caribbean.

by Andy Brack · 08/28/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

Flooded streets in Pearland, Texas. Photo by Brant Kelly via Wikimedia Commons.

GOOD NEWS: How you can help people hurting in Texas

Staff reports | The American Red Cross has mobilized thousands of trained disaster relief workers, truckloads of supplies and thousands of meals to support the response effort following the hurricane that hit Texas over the weekend.

by Charleston Currents · 08/28/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

By Detroit Publishing Company [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

FOCUS: Charleston has common-sense approach to historical statues

By Robert S. Carr, special to Charleston Currents | George Santayana, a Spanish philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist, is probably best known for his often proclaimed and lampooned quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If that thought is accurate, what does it say about the future of those who tear down monuments to the past?

Mayor John Tecklenburg of Charleston has the right idea. Instead of tearing down monuments that may offend some, he is quoted as saying in The Post and Courier: “The whole story of our history needs to be told. I intend to be complete and truthful about our history and add context and add to the story instead of taking away.”

by Charleston Currents · 08/21/2017 · 1 comment · Focus, Good news

FOCUS: Let’s clean up our state and become litter-free

By Sarah Lyles and Mallory Biering, special to Statehouse Report | Litter is a passionate subject. Either one is vehemently against it or one is decidedly apathetic.

Whichever side you lean on, it can’t be denied. Litter affects all of us. While our Main Streets and interstates get cleaned regularly, our side streets and rural roads are continually treated as a travelers’ trash can. Whether litter is intentionally dumped or accidentally flies out of an unsecured or improperly covered load, it needs to be addressed in a number of ways. Ideally that timeline would involve enforcement of state or local litter laws, a citation to the guilty party, fine levied by the judge and finally pick up.

What seems to happen more often is nothing. Law enforcement is stretched thin or an agency does not consider litter a real crime.

by Charleston Currents · 08/14/2017 · 1 comment · Focus, Good news

GOOD NEWS: Great Carolina Fried Chicken Map

Staff reports | About three dozen tri-county locations are on the new Great Carolina Fried Chicken Map, which highlights 319 places in the Carolinas that specialize in everything from traditional fried chicken take-out joints to great chicken found in gas stations and church dining rooms.

“There’s a lot of mystery over fried chicken and how favorite restaurants get that perfect crispy bird,” said Amanda Fisher, a co-creator of the map, which is being shipped to customers and retail outlets across North and South Carolina.

by Charleston Currents · 08/14/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs