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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — West Ashley is home to South Carolina’s first-ever food forest.

Funded through a $50,000 grant from the South Carolina Forestry Commission, Charleston Parks Conservancy launched the project with the City of Charleston and other partners to provide free and nutritious options in areas struggling with food insecurity.

“In the end, this will end up producing about 30,000 pounds of fresh organic produce, in a community that doesn't have great access to healthy foods,” said Darlene Heater, executive director of Charleston Parks Conservancy.

Rows of more than 75 plants, ranging from nut trees to berry bushes, line Mulberry Park in West Ashley.

READ MORE: "Hendrick Automotive Group donates $100,000 to Lowcountry Food Bank."

The first in the state, Charleston’s new food forest will provide free, fresh produce to those who need it most.

“What's beautiful about a food forest is that anybody can access it at any time. So, you're not relying on someone's opening hours or the availability to be able to go to a source to get food,” Heater said. “It is in the community and available to the community for whoever needs it.”

The forest features seven tiers of agriculture and will begin producing roughly $25,000 worth of food annually in the first five years.

The conservancy has worked with several local groups, like Slow Food Charleston, to make the flagship project come to life.

“To help bring good, clean, and fair agricultural products to our community, to communities that may not have access to them. To have them engage in a manner that is enriching,” said Kellie Holmes, co-chair of Slow Food Charleston.

READ MORE: "Hansley's Free Fridge project is fighting food insecurity in South Carolina."

Accessibility is at the root of it all.

The food forest is in the Ardmore neighborhood, a lower-income area that could be categorized as a food desert. It isn't an uncommon issue. Around 40.5 million Americans live in USDA-designated food deserts nationwide.

“Mulberry Park is an ideal location. It is a community that, though it has some grocery stores in its vicinity, they are not necessarily grocery stores that everyone in the community can afford to go to,” Heater explained.

Located off the Bikeway, Charleston Parks Conservancy hopes the food forest will feed not only its closest neighbors but the greater West Ashley and Charleston area.

Pluck an apple, cut some herbs or pick some berries at South Carolina's first food forest, a new free-of-charge grove being built in the Ardmore community.

With an expected seven stories of canopies and an estimated $25,000 annually in produce by its fifth year, Charleston Parks Conservancy director Darlene Heater acknowledged it's a remarkable undertaking for the local nonprofit.

"It's creating access in food deserts but creating it in a way that is low-maintenance and little barrier for people to be able to participate in it," Heater said.

The food forest on Mulberry Street near Grech Street, and off the West Ashley Bikeway, is being funded by a $50,000 grant from the South Carolina Forestry Commission.

While the conservancy is handling the horticulture, the City of Charleston's parks department is working to excavate the land, add pathways and install a new playground at the park. It is one of several conservancy projects this year, in addition to working with the city to manage 24 parks on the peninsula, on James Island and in West Ashley.

Parks Department director Jason Kronsberg compared the collaboration between the city, the conservancy and the community to a three-legged stool. The conservancy liaises with the neighborhoods, like Ardmore for the food forest, and then fundraises with them before going to the city to bring a project to life.

The food forest is intended to help the Ardmore neighborhood, recently identified in the Charleston parks master plan as a community of high need, along with the surrounding community.

Besides providing free access to produce, the forest can help people better understand where their food comes from, Kronsberg said. It's also an opportunity for folks to lend a hand with some maintenance.

"The parks are owned by everybody," Kronsberg said.

The project will not be without its challenges, though. As the weather in Charleston gets more severe, Heater said that the conservancy will need to tend to the forest carefully and make sure plants or produce don't wash away.

Teaching the community how to use — and not overuse — the one-of-a-kind forest will take time, too.

The conservancy plans to lean on its volunteer base to maintain the forest, such as harvesting, packing and sending excess produce to local nonprofits. There will be no constraints on harvesting to start, as to not adversely impact food accessibility, Heater said. Part of it will be trial and error, and much of the plan is flexible based on the demand the conservancy sees for certain produce.

"What we may learn is that this community really loves sweet potatoes but doesn't care as much about turnips," Heater said. "So let's look at how we can expand growing our sweet potato patch so that we can continue to serve the people adequately who most need it."

This spring will mark the first planting of the fruit trees, brambles and herbs. Heater said that best practices dictate not harvesting during the first year, so by the second year the conservancy expects to have herbs, mushrooms, brambles and possibly bananas to harvest.

By the fifth year, with an estimated 70 trees bearing fruit, Heater said she expects 10,000 pounds of produce.

The food forest comes two years after the adoption of a new Charleston parks master plan and months after the overwhelming approval of a bond referendum question last November.

"Citizens spoke loudly and clearly that they supported the referendum and improved park spaces," Kronsberg said. "Coming out of COVID, when parks became critical infrastructure, it was natural that there was that much support for a referendum."

As the Ardmore food forest begins to yield, relieving supply-chain issues might just become an additional perk. And in a world reshaped after the pandemic, the food forest is one project that shows how to branch out from the traditional park.

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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - West Ashley community members are asking for more volunteers to help them clean up visible homeless encampments.

Charleston County Sheriff Kristin Graziano claims there are around 340-350 homeless people in the county area and more than 650 homeless veterans in the Lowcountry. Many of them seek shelter or community with already established encampments.

A large encampment near Savannah Highway was given notice to leave two weeks ago. The original site was established nearly eight months ago by one person, who was one of two left behind when the group of 20 people vacated.

“These people brought friends, and those people brought more friends. They ended up taking advantage of the people that let them in and then stole a lot of their stuff” Graziano says. “Then they took the notice we sent them and left.”

Both people, who asked not to be filmed, say they were upset that the area was left trashed.

The wooded area is private property and is surrounded by residential and commercial properties. Homeowners nearby call the trash, tents and items an “eyesore.”

Olivia Grafton runs a Facebook group called the “Charleston Litter Clean Up and Homeless and Mental Illness Awareness.” Grafton started this a few months ago as a West Ashley neighbor of 30-plus years.

“Find them, give them food, hygiene supplies, just check on them and build a connection to make them feel they still have hope,” Grafton says.

Grafton says she likes being able to share a smile and direct connection to her community, but without the numbers, these encampments remain unsustainable.

“A lot of people ask me why I do it, why do I spend all this time doing it? You have so many individuals out there that are struggling and they just feel worthless,” Grafton says. “We don’t know what their story is.”

Graziano says county and community resources are quickly drained by these spaces. The sheriff’s office tries to track encampments, but they often move quickly, making it difficult.

Graziano says many people she has spoken to have been given jail time for “petty charges,” like trespassing, littering and disorderly conduct.

The long-term goal is to learn more about the people and families living in encampments so they can get the resources they need to get back on their feet. This could mean a driver’s license, resources for a job, or basic survival needs.

“We’re chasing our tail. It’s not sustainable. This is a vicious cycle,” Graziano says. “It’s going to keep happening and more people are going to be homeless. We need to get folks together at the table that can make these decisions.”

The sheriff’s office works with Grafton to host clean-ups for different sites across West Ashley. The group tries to plan weekly, monthly or bi-monthly events, depending on where the need is for the community.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Residents who live near one West Ashley development learned more about the future of their community during a meeting hosted by developers.

Cameron Property Company, the company overseeing the development of 26 acres near the Essex Farms community, invited residents to share their concerns and provide input at a meeting Thursday night.

The 26-acre lot runs from Essex Farms Drive, down Skye Drive and extends to Dorothy Drive.

Developers were accompanied by Charleston city officials representing the council, planning department, and traffic department to discuss what potential businesses residents could expect to see.

During the meeting, community members said they were relieved to learn that the developer withdrew its request to change the zoning language to include drive-thru windows at restaurants.

The developer is in talks with a grocery store and gas station, but plans have not been finalized.

Some residents said they are less than pleased about the big changes coming to the Essex Farms community.

Residents also expressed concerns about traffic congestion and the potential for a gas station to be built on the property.

“Tonight’s the first time we’ve heard gas station. That was a shock for all of us. When we purchased our properties, we were told specifically that a gas station wasn’t allowed to be there,” resident Kellie Kinard said.

Development Manager Collins Moe said he wants community input but that the company has the right to build to the zoning order, which does allow a grocery store and gas station.

“We’re going through the appropriate city of Charleston permit steps which require traffic studies. Things that outline what we’re proposing to make sure they meet all the standards with the county, the state, and the city, more importantly, based on where this property lies. At the end of the day, we’re still very far out,” Moe said.

Kinard said she is disappointed and was left with even more concerns and questions.

“I think my husband and I are going to have a serious conversation about whether or not we’re going to list our home. Which is really unfortunate because we love our neighborhood. We have great neighbors, but we do not want this type of development that they’re talking about potentially literally within several feet of our driveway,” Kinard said.

City officials stated that this development was approved many years ago and the zoning goes back to 1997.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

The wide land west of the Ashley River is home to comfortable tree-lined streets with rows of homes, highways flanked by businesses and malls, villages like Avondale and emerging plans for revitalization.

With a 2022 population of 83,996 people, West Ashley is the epicenter of Charleston, even though most people consider the peninsula to be more population.

“What makes West Ashley special is the people,” said West Ashley Realtor Shana Swain, a former bartender with connections throughout the suburb. “It’s where the heart of Charleston is.”

West Of newspaper editor Lorne Chambers agreed, describing residents as having a “scrappy spirit.”

“They are not your traditional downtown Charleston people, but they are real Charlestonians,” he said. “In a way, this is the original Charlestown,” he said. “You have a lot of people over here who have a lot of pride in their community and hope for a better tomorrow.”

Dominated before World War II by farms and pastures, West Ashley bloomed into a middle-class suburban haven replete with everything from mind-numbing rush-hour traffic to chain stores that you can find in Columbus, Ohio.

But with a controversial development project being discussed at the former Piggly Wiggly site on Sumar Street and Ashley River Crossing, a planned pedestrian bridge connecting West Ashley and downtown, a question is what direction is the suburb headed.

The West Ashley Revitalization Committee has been spearheading the suburb’s path toward development. The committee’s Plan West Ashley aims for ambitious changes from economic development to flood prevention.

The Sumar Street development project was postponed in June, causing doubts about the strength of the committee’s plans.

City Councilman Karl Brady represents outer West Ashley. A board member of the West Ashley Revitalization Commission, he said West Ashley projects like the Sumar Street development project, were voted down by people who don’t have a vision for the future.

“They see West Ashley as it is but not as what it could be,” he said.

Brady, who currently is running for reelection, said that in revitalization it is important to remember where West Ashley started. It was the birthplace of Charleston when settlers landed at Charles Towne Landing in 1670.

“I think one thing lost on a bunch of people is that West Ashley is the birthplace of Charleston. That’s how we should treat it.”

Chambers, a former Charleston City Paper employee, said West Ashley is planning in the right direction, but there is not much to show for it.

“In people, you are seeing this shift away from these traditional big-box stores towards giving more community pride,” he said. “But we have to stay the course.”

Chambers said the community has historically wanted more than malls and commutes, but often ended up with Walmarts and chain businesses regardless.

Malls, he said, are a product of West Ashley’s suburban boom in the 1980s. The “retail apocalypse” of the 2010s crippled them. Now, West Ashley has a lot of vacant lots. Chambers said because the area is growing, some residents want to shed the concrete.

“Most citizens in West Ashley didn’t want another mall or gas station,” he said.

Donna Jacobs is a West Ashley historian and author. As a former board member of Plan West Ashley, Jacobs noticed a generational difference in what residents plan for their neighborhoods.

Jacobs said the West Ashley area has been split between two different models of how to live and build. It also is split between two different generations of Americans and what they want for the future.

In many ways, these splits are between those “inside the loop” and those “outside the loop,” meaning those who live north of the swath cut by Interstate 526 and those who live south of it — an area generally with more land and open space.

She said those who live inside 526 advocate for a walkable Avondale plan. But those outside of the interstate often want to keep West Ashley’s traditional shopping centers.

“Inside the loop, some of these younger residents would happily ride their bikes to work every day and walk their kids to school, regardless of the weather,” she said.

But others see cars as their primary way of commuting, “They kind of expect those old West Ashley malls to drive to,” she said.

Jacobs said the diverse lifestyles and history of West Ashley was a strength for living in the area. She added she thought West Ashley was a nice place to live regardless of whether you believe in the Avondale approach or the mall.

Alex Nettless, a former City Paper intern, is a student at Elon University.

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West Ashley by the numbers

Population 83,996

Ethnicity68% White26% Black3% Hispanic

Median age 38.7

Median household income $68,898

Percent above $100,000 31%

Households below poverty line 10%

Households above $200,000 7.6%

Households 36,864

Occupancy52% owner-occupied40.0% rental7.7% vacant

Education19.1% are high school graduates.30.7% have bachelor’s degrees.16.5% have graduate degrees.

Apparel and services $82M

Education $65M

Entertainment, Rec $121M

Food at home $201M

Food away from home $144M

Health care $213M

Household furnishings $83M

Shelter $734M

Travel $89M

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