The Center for a Better South
The SouthernCarolina Alliance, lead organization of the new South Carolina Promise Zone, held three town hall meetings in recent days to listen and learn to what residents dream for to make real and lasting change in the region. The Alliance will hold three more meetings in coming days. The Center for a Better South is a supporting organization of the Promise Zone. Learn more.
JUNE 24, 2015 — The Center for a Better South will coordinate and conduct a series of six town hall meetings in July in the recently-announced Promise Zone that encompasses six challenged counties at the southern tip of South Carolina.
“This is a phenomenal chance to interact with neighbors and leaders throughout Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties to share with them about the huge opportunities that the Promise Zone designation provides to grow jobs, improve education and reduce crime,” said Andy Brack, president and chairman of the Center. “These town hall sessions throughout July also will give people a chance to have their say about the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities as the region pushes forward to embrace new ways to tap into federal money to vastly improve people’s lives.”
On April 28, the Obama Administration announced the six counties in the Southern Carolina region won the nation’s second rural Promise Zone designation. Only 20 of the special designations are to be awarded across the nation. The innovative program allows Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties to access into federal money and other opportunities in new ways to grow jobs, improve education and reduce crime. The Southern Carolina Regional Development Alliance is coordinating the effort with the six county governments and an array of public, private and nonprofit partners.
The Alliance has contracted with the Center to conduct the town hall meetings, a key step in developing a long-term strategic plan to coordinate the myriad opportunities provided by the designation, Brack said. The Center will work with The Weathers Group, based in Columbia, S.C., to facilitate the town hall meetings.
“We’d like to encourage as many people in the counties to attend these town hall meetings so that we get as diverse and broad of community input as we can,” Brack added. “It’s open to students, neighborhood leaders, elected officials, business executives, nonprofit leaders and more.”
Here is the schedule of meetings in July:
Allendale County Town Hall meeting
Bamberg County Town Hall meeting
Barnwell County Town Hall meeting
Colleton County Town Hall meeting
Hampton County Town Hall meeting
Jasper County Town Hall meeting
For more information, contact the Center at: brack@bettersouth.org.
[UPDATED, May 1, 2015] | The Center for a Better South is an integral part of the team that put together the successful application for rural counties in the southern part of South Carolina to win a federal Promise Zone designation this week.
“Without the visionary leadership and guidance of the Center for a Better South, the counties in the SouthernCarolina Alliance never would have applied for a federal Promise Zone designation, much less been able to put together the winning application that will change the lives of tens of thousands of people in the southern part of South Carolina,” said Danny Black, president and CEO of the Alliance, an economic development agency that will lead work in the Zone counties. “We look forward to continuing to work with the Center to grow jobs, reduce poverty and make our communities better.”
Better South President Andy Brack, who worked with the Alliance as part of a leadership team to bring together more than 20 organizations to partner on an application for the federal designation, said the Zone designation would make a big difference.
“This is going to change people’s lives,” he said. By being part of a new Promise Zone designations, just over 90,000 people in Allendale, Barnwell, Bamberg, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties will have new tools to be able to tap into existing federal grant dollars and other opportunities.
“It’s a big deal,” Brack said. “South Carolina is only the nation’s second rural Promise Zone and the only one announced today. If the same kinds of things happen here that have happened in the other rural Zone in eastern Kentucky, we should be looking at an infusion of millions of dollars over time to grow jobs, improve the economy, have better schools, get more affordable housing and reduce crime.”
For the last few months, the Center for a Better South has been working behind the scenes with folks at the Southern Carolina Alliance and other organizations to push our South Carolina Work Group‘s goal of ensuring an application for a Promise Zone designation from the federal government on behalf of people living in the lower part of the state.
Today, we can announce that the application has been filed and, while we don’t know whether the Southern Carolina region will be named a Promise Zone, we’re tickled pink at the hard work of all involved.
To get an idea of what we worked on, let us encourage you to read this commentary posted earlier today by Better South President Andy Brack as part of his Statehouse Report weekly publication:
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher
NOV. 21, 2014 — Imagine if there were some kind of program — a little something extra — that could give pervasively poor places a better chance so they could be more like most of America.
Imagine how such a program could create better job opportunities to stabilize family finances, reduce crime to make communities safer and improve education so children could expand economic mobility.
In January 2013, President Obama announced a pragmatic effort to help overlooked places in America. In his State of the Union address, Obama said he would designate 20 “Promise Zones” — special urban, rural and tribal communities where the federal government would partner with communities to make life better.
What’s smart about this effort is how it doesn’t drop a big pot of money on poor communities. Instead they have to come up with real plans on how to fix things. Then they can apply for federal help through existing grant programs. But the bonus: communities that get the designation will get human capital — trained federal workers who will help make applications for existing grant money to grow jobs, reduce crime or improve education. For these regions with low tax bases, that’s practical help. Next, the Promise Zone communities get a few extra points when an application is scored — a little bump because they’re persistently poor areas with a lot of challenges. That’s smart, too, because it gives these areas a realistic chance to compete for funding, instead of always being on the short end of the stick because they’re small and often forgotten.
Today, South Carolina’s poorest region applied for a Promise Zone designation. The Southern Carolina Alliance (SCA), an economic development nonprofit that covers Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties, is leading an effort to secure the designation for just over 90,000 people in this southern tip of the Palmetto State.
In this area west of Interstate 95, the poverty rate is 28.2 percent, including one sector with a poverty rate just shy of 50 percent of residents. Unemployment is 14.8 percent — more than twice the state average. Crime rates are too high. The schooling that most kids get is substandard, recognized just last week by the state Supreme Court in a long-awaited landmark case on inequitable school funding.
As part of the Southern Carolina Promise Zone application, the SCA, in coordination with the counties, nonprofits and private entities, proposes to energize job growth strategies that would help small farmers grow foods to be sold in the state’s metropolitan areas and keep hundreds of millions of dollars spent on food in the Palmetto State. Some 90 percent of the $10 billion in food we buy in South Carolina goes out of state.
Other job growth strategies call for special attention to agribusiness, such as food processing plants; creation of construction jobs by rehabilitating poor housing and building more affordable housing units; growing green-related jobs through a program to upfit homes to allow residents to save on energy costs and implementing a proven program to boost financial stability of low-income families. Also proposed: a revolving loan fund to generate more small businesses; education measures for more job training to expand skill sets; scholarship programs; early reading help; more prosecutors to curb career criminals and gang activity; and a peer victim advocate program in local schools.
SCA leader Danny Black says his group wants the region to be named a Promise Zone because it’s just plain good for areas that have been ignored for far too long.
“It’s the correct area of the Southeast to do something like this because we are hurting in all of the areas that they want to touch,” he said. “It’s something that allows us to bring quality of life issues and economic opportunities to a part of the state that really needs it.”
Tim Ervolina, head of the United Way Association of South Carolina, said his organization is excited about the possibility of a Promise Zone in the Southern Carolina area.
“It’s not just about the additional resources,” he said. “It’s about the opportunity to use those resources to build lasting community infrastructure which can bring sustainable change.”
Indeed. It’s about time. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.