Making city more beautiful
Businesswoman's $10M gift launches conservancy
The Post and Courier
Charleston Park Conservancy teams will hand out flowers from 5 to 7 p.m. today at Colonial Lake. Darla Moore created the conservancy a year ago to help improve the city's parks.
The Post and Courier
Darla Moore
To find out more about the Charleston Parks Conservancy and how to help, go to www.parkangels.org or charlestonparksconservancy.org.
South Carolina financier and philanthropist Darla Moore has given $10 million to launch a nonprofit group that hopes to energize the public toward beautifying Charleston's parks.
Moore created the Charleston Parks Conservancy a year ago, but the group just went public this week to seek major volunteers or "lead park angels."
Charleston Mayor Joe Riley called Moore's gift an unprecedented act of generosity.
"Charleston is known for its beautiful built environment, and working with the Charleston Parks Conservancy, we will increasingly make Charleston a place also renowned for the beauty and quality of its parks," he said. "We've been very excited since we first started discussing this over a year and a half ago."
Moore, a Lake City native and University of South Carolina graduate, bought a home in downtown Charleston six years ago. Her reputation as one of the nation's toughest businesswomen is rivaled by her reputation for generosity. She already has donated $45 million to her alma mater's business school, which bears her name.
In announcing the conservancy, she said, "While we have done remarkable things to preserve and enhance our buildings and the Charleston way of life, it is now time to reinvigorate the areas our citizens use most and enjoy: our parks."
She said she hopes the conservancy
"will serve as a catalyst for a renewed private-public partnership between the city and its many wonderful neighborhoods to preserve, sustain and enhance the beauty of Charleston's parks and public spaces."
In its first year, the conservancy quietly has hired two employees, helped beautify the public areas around South Windermere Shopping Center and spent $50,000 to finance design work to improve Colonial Lake and the neighboring Moultrie Playground.
Conservancy Executive Director Jim Martin said the idea was influenced by the success of the Central Park Conservancy in New York, which was formed in the 1980s to improve Manhattan's largest and most well-known park. Martin, who has an office in the city's parks department building, said the conservancy kept a low profile in its first year as it developed its relationship with the city.
"We also needed to figure out who we were, to develop our brand and go out to the public," he said.
Those interested in volunteering are asked to apply by July 11, and after that, the conservancy will choose five lead angels to recruit still more volunteers to raise money, raise awareness and even dig in the dirt.
Martin said Moore donated start-up money and created a $9 million endowment, which will be invested to provide a continuing source of income.
The conservancy will partner with the city on different capital improvements and maintenance projects in the city's 120 parks. The first work has included consulting on renovations to Colonial Lake, Moultrie Playground and Wragg Square, as well as helping develop the new Concord Park. Martin said it also plans to reach some of the smaller, neglected area parks.
Martin said some parks, such as Hampton Park, have some cool stuff, horticulture wise, while others, like Colonial Lake, are rather flat. "It's grass, oleanders and a few trees, and that's it," he said of the land surrounding the lake.
Charleston Parks Director Steve Livingston said the conservancy "is one of the most exciting things that I've seen happen to the city parks system since I've been here (in 1978). It's a huge gift to the city and every citizen."
The city's park system has grown to 120 parks that cover about 1,600 acres downtown, West Ashley and James, Johns and Daniel islands.
Livingston said the conservancy's efforts won't necessarily pay off this year or next, just like it took the Central Park Conservancy several years to transform that park from an often scary place to a welcoming garden. "It's going to take a few years, but ultimately, the impact that they can have on the public realm in the city is phenomenal."
Conservancy teams will hand out free flowers from 5-7 p.m. today at Colonial Lake to spread the word, and they'll appear at other city parks later this week doing the same.
"This is only going to work with community support, through volunteers as well as financially," Martin said. "We hope this is what the community wants. It's their park system."
Reach Robert Behre at 937-5771 or at rbehre@postandcourier.com.
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Comments
a_set_love (anonymous) says...
It becomes more evident each day, that people living in the City of Charleston have been bad, really bad and "God" has inflicted Mayor Joesph P. Riley, Jr. as a suitable punishment.
June 19, 2008 at 8:07 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
a_set_love (anonymous) says...
For those in the City of Charleston looking for a new SCE&G power pole to deposit the results of your "Mastication" upon, try and find a suitable depository as close to city hall as possible.
"ADD TO THE BEAUTY OF THE CITY OF CHARLESTON"
June 19, 2008 at 8:08 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ballera33 (anonymous) says...
Why not also work to clean up the city streets and beautify the things that people see on a daily basis? Have you SEEN the trash in this city?!
June 19, 2008 at 8:31 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
beenya_toolong (anonymous) says...
You are both idiots. What the hell does that have to do with anything. Darla Moore has given a wonderful gift to the city which will benefit you both (that is if you ever venture out from behind your computers in your dark little rooms). Shut up and enjoy it.
June 19, 2008 at 8:39 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
NativeSC (anonymous) says...
I applaud Darla Moore, too bad someone from outside of the community has to do something like this. Why don't the Darbys and the Beach Co, who have made millions of dollars off of this community, do something to enhance it instead of trying to develop every square inch of it. We need parks, green space, etc more than condo and "mixed use" developments that are grossly overpriced. And they are just one of many that should be doing more for the community.
June 19, 2008 at 8:47 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
wjhamilton3 (anonymous) says...
The transformation of Central Park in New York has to be seen to be believed. It's clean, interesting and safe. When we walked through the Ramble, a wooded area on the parks South end there was absolutely no trash.
Darla Moore has given the city an exceptional opportunity. It won't be appreciated by the let me carry my gun and cut my taxes crowd, but for a city that needs to compete for jobs, investment and talent quality public green spaces are critical.
We don't have the luxury or throwing away our urbanized areas, buldozing another mile out into the woods and messing that up any longer. We need urban areas that work for the people who want to live that way. Those who have all day to drive and plenty of money for gas can try living in the woods.
June 19, 2008 at 9:22 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
nappyd (anonymous) says...
oh ok, so that's who owns one of those downtown homes with the lights off most of the year.
besides, the money isn't going to the parks, it's going to set up an endowment for creating a nonprofit group that debatably wasn't needed in the first place.
so that's a tax writeoff for the donation to create it (who doesn't wish they had that problem of what to do with $10 million?) and then continued writeoffs for donations to it. and i'm sure whoever gets hired to work there won't know her. i say give it a few years and see if there's some major work/renovations done to the park system. who knows, maybe they'll start up christmas lights to compete with james island.
June 19, 2008 at 9:52 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Charles_Town (anonymous) says...
I do not get some of you people. Here is a lady generously donating money she does not have to help the city of Charleston look better and some of you criticize. So what if she did it in a fashion that allows her a tax write-ff she did not get the money by being stupid.
June 19, 2008 at 11:41 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
KidYendor (anonymous) says...
Is Darla single? Is she free for dinner?
June 19, 2008 at 12:19 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
kerwin1959 (anonymous) says...
I wish she had targeted a portion of her donation for more police officers, public safety and sanitation workers downtown. I wonder how she'd feel if HER car was vandalized, if HER house was burglarized, if HER street always had trash on it or if HER body had been sexually assaulted.
The green space donation gives her a huge tax write-off, I suspect. However, all the pretty green space in Charleston won't help if tourists quit coming because of the crime.
Charleston is starting to sound more like Savannah or, OMG -- New Orleans. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class pays the taxes for everyone. JMO
June 19, 2008 at 2:04 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
a_set_love (anonymous) says...
tHANK YOU, mR. rILEY.
June 19, 2008 at 4 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
walleyedwoman1215 (anonymous) says...
She is married to a fellow NYC financier, Mr. Rainwater. Ms. Moore comes from a modest rural background and made herself a blazing success. Her dad was a teacher and coach and her granny taught her how to snap pole beans. She is one awesome lady!!!!!!
June 19, 2008 at 5:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
KidYendor (anonymous) says...
walleye, Thank you for breaking my heart with that information.
I hope Mr. Rainwater has plenty of finances after her giving away that 10 mil.
June 19, 2008 at 9:14 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
beenya_toolong (anonymous) says...
She is not some absentee Yankee home owner in Charleston. She is a wonderful South Carolinian born and bred. She was born in raised in Lake City, SC in lower Florence County...near Kingstree. She spends most of her time in SC. She is doing a wonderful thing for Charleston, the only sad thing here is that she doesn't give a mere million or two to Lake City to help with the downtown redevelopment program. Wal-Mart has devastated that wonderful little town and Darla could do amazing things for her hometown.
June 20, 2008 at 1:52 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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