The Leadership Charleston Class of 2021 has been busy making positive impacts in our community! The participants teamed up to make six groups to focus on a volunteer project for the year.

Group One

Group Two

Local students from Lowcountry Leadership Charter School were about to start construction of the garden when all the school’s farming equipment was stolen. Our group of 10 leaders provided 6 raised garden beds, a shed and tools for the St. Johns Hollywood library to assist them with mitigating the areas food insecurity.

Impact on the community: The garden’s bounty will help mitigate food insecurity in the area and provide a place for students to volunteer and learn gardening.

Total hours to build – approximately 32 hours over three days not including Preparation and coordination time prior to build.

Fundraising was completed with a combination donations of products and money from Frampton Construction, Fields to Families, McGill Environmental Services, Pinestraw Services Charleston, Scotts Pallets and Brooks Signs.

The “Free and Fresh Refrigerator” provided by Charleston Friends of the Library will be filled with the garden’s bounty to help mitigate food insecurity.

Group Three

Charleston United
Non Profit we are working with: Community Resource Center

We’ve banded together to leverage our collective expertise to serve this organization via a number of projects (e.g. legal, marketing, renovations, maintenance etc.). We have consulted with them on their google search engine optimization, designed and printed a trifold brochure, created the attached poster to help solicit support electronically, held two clean up days where we power washed the building, cleaned up the landscaping, layed down mulch, scrubbed the interior surfaces, and organized their gym space so it would be usable. We partnered with JE Dunn, Bonitz Flooring, and Quantum Coatings to renovate the back room of the facility, tearing out the old carpet and laying down new carpet, patching holes in the walls, and repainting the room to turn it into a welcoming and functional space.

We are still working on creating a volunteer waiver for the CRC to use, fundraising for the grocery drives that they hold every week, and are hoping to get them some more permanent signage as well.

“My teams final project with the CRC is a fundraiser to assist with their grocery drives. The Lowcountry Food Bank, through generous donations, is able to supply the Community Resource Center with the food necessary to feed our neighbors, and the grocery drives the CRC holds serves thousands every week. Removing this funding concern will allow the Center to focus on other valuable programs as well as open up a third location, thereby increasing their impact to the Tri county region.”

The CRC supports the community in a myriad of ways. Our fundraising effort will have the largest impact on the grocery drives, ensuring food is delivered to the CRC for families in need to rely on. However, making the CRC a more welcoming space boosts morale of volunteers and leadership there, and allows them to serve a larger audience through the use of that back room.

Hours completed or expected to donate to project (to measure total community impact)

20 hours of time working on projects (10 of those hours included multiple people), I’m not sure of the cost of the renovation if it had been done at cost, it was all donated materials and time. See below for hopeful financial donation piece.

The teams final project with the CRC is a fundraiser to assist with their grocery drives. The Lowcountry Food Bank, through generous donations, is able to supply the Community Resource Center with the food necessary to feed our neighbors, and the grocery drives the CRC holds serves thousands every week. Removing this funding concern will allow the Center to focus on other valuable programs as well as open up a third location, thereby increasing their impact to the Tri county region. We are hoping to raise $10,000 through generous personal donations and businesses in the area who want to support the centers work. In one month we’ve raised $3,416 and we are pushing hard to raise the rest of the funds before the end of the Leadership Charleston program.

How to support
• FB fundraiser
• Checks can be made out to the Community Resource Center North Charleston and mailed to: 3947 Whipper Barony Lane North Charleston, SC 2940

Group Four

Group 4 is volunteering with Tech4All, which is helping communities bridge the digital divide

• 80+ Hours have been dedicated to this project so far.
• Potential Ask – fundraising ask, potential time frame/deadline with link to donate or contact person for contributions. $10,000, as soon as possible. Go Fund Me Page

Group Five

Charleston Changers

We have partnered with the Charleston County School District to promote and assist the Children in Crisis fund. The Children in Crisis Fund is an emergency fund controlled and administered by Charleston County School District, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The fund is utilized to assist CCSD students and their families with urgent financial needs in emergency situations. The fund typically holds only a few thousand dollars for all 50,000 children in CCSD.

What can funds be requested or used for?
• Emergency housing for homeless families (hotel/motel stay)
• Rent assistance to prevent eviction or homelessness
• Aid to students/families following fire or other disaster
• Purchase of food or gift card for food
• School uniforms
• Winter Clothes
• Student health emergencies, i.e. medication
• Assistance to schools for establishing a students’ clothes closet, food pantry, or a “Back Pack” Buddies program
• Assist families in the event of a student’s death
• Other crises situations are reviewed on a case by case basis

Community Impact
This fund directly supports the children of Charleston County and their families with financial support in critical situations. Fund allocations are provided directly to vendors and providers to ensure the exact needs are being met.

Fundraising Goal
We have started our fundraising goal at $2,500 with a hope to far exceed this amount. Our initial goal date is August 20th, 2021.

Community Ask
Part of this project is to raise money for this fund, but the other part is community awareness. At the end of last year we did a first round of a social media blast to get out the importance and details of this initiative. We are hoping to make this fund more well known to help secure multi-year funding and more continuous donations throughout the year. We are running a second social media campaign with the promotion of our GoFundMe campaign. Through the August target date, donations can be made to our Children in Crisis GoFundMe page. We are also asking for general promotion of this fund to encourage additional involvement and support.

We are organizing a “Pint Night” with some local breweries where they will donate a portion of sales to the fund. We are in process of scheduling this, but targeting the beginning of August. Will provide more details when we finalize plans.

Group Six

Team 6 is supporting The Green Heart Project through hands-on volunteering, marketing plan development and construction at St. Andrew’s Math and Science.

Impact on the community
The Green Heart Project touches hundreds of lives throughout Charleston, especially when it comes to our youth. Our engagement is enabling fruits and vegetables to grow, empowering Green Heart to reach more people, and connecting youth to healthy foods and gardening.

Hours completed or expected to donate to project (to measure total community impact)

• Hands-on volunteering: 32
• Marketing plan development: 40
• Project development and execution: 100
• Potential Ask – fundraising ask, potential time frame/deadline with link to donate or contact person for contributions.