For 49-year-old Bluffton High School teacher Melanie Williams, discovering she had breast cancer during a routine mammogram last July came as a life-changing blow.

Over the next several weeks, the mother of two would struggle to keep up with work, a busy home life and what seemed like a never-ending stream of doctor appointments and diagnostic tests. Her prognosis and how it would affect her two teenage children added to her anxiety.

Mission: The Children’s Center provides affordable, high quality, early childhood education and childcare services for working families. We strive to be the standard of excellence for child education, development and care in the Lowcountry, while supporting our community, enabling parents to fully participate in the local workforce and ensuring every child is ready to achieve success upon entering kindergarten.

Tell us about The Children’s Center:
The Children’s Center has served Hilton Head Island and the Lowcountry for almost 55 years, making us the second oldest non-profit organization on Hilton Head. The Children’s Center, Inc. is a unique, not-for-profit organization that provides working families affordable and accessible early childhood education and childcare services. We make high quality early education and childcare services available and affordable for working families, giving children a great start to life.

The Center was founded when concerned community leaders recognized the need for low-cost, safe, nurturing childcare for the children of working parents on Hilton Head Island. The Children’s Centers’ multicultural, bilingual, early childhood education program is provided five days a week, year-round, beginning at 6-weeks of age. Our goal is to provide a learning environment that enhances the physical, social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and creative development of each child. The Children’s Center offers families a sliding scale tuition program, based on household income.

Mission: To provide free, critical, legal services to low-income individuals living in Beaufort, Jasper and Hampton Counties.

Tell us about Lowcountry Legal Volunteers.
Lowcountry Legal Volunteers is a local 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has served the community for over 20 years by providing free legal services to people living at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. Our ultimate goal is to provide legal counsel for those who otherwise could not afford legal representation. The majority of the more than 150 cases a year that we take involve family law matters and always involve children.

Who benefits from this program?
Our clients come from all walks of life and backgrounds—with all needing help dealing with some type of legal issue affecting their daily life.

What is your role in the organization and how did you come to this role?
I am proud to serve as the Executive Director of Lowcountry Legal Volunteers. Before this position I was LCLV’s Executive Attorney for seven years.

Mission: To promote early childhood literacy and oral language development, while helping new parents understand their critical role as their child’s first and most important teacher.

Tell us about Born to Read. Who benefits from this program?
Born to Read is the only program in which volunteers visit new parents and their infants while promoting literacy at the beginning of the child’s life. Each baby is given a resource bag that contains information in both English and Spanish about the many resources available to them in Beaufort County. Because of our partnership with Beaufort County School District and the Beaufort County Library system, our organization plays a valuable role in giving parents literacy information. There are no other programs in the four county areas of Beaufort, Jasper, Colleton, and Hampton which seek to personally contact all parents where the mothers deliver their babies in the local area hospitals. As an all-inclusive program, BTR anticipates serving around 2,000 new mothers in these communities in the coming year.

Born to Read also offers free parent workshops four times a year throughout Beaufort County designed for children 18-months to 3 years old. Materials given are in both English and Spanish.

“The U.S. recorded its highest number of drug-overdose deaths
in a 12-month period, eclipsing 100,000 for the first time…”
—Wall Street Journal, 11/18/2021

Mission: Celebrate Recovery is a Christ-centered, 12-step recovery program for anyone struggling with hurts, habits, hang-ups, pain, or addiction of any kind. Celebrate Recovery is a safe place to find community and freedom from the issues that are controlling our life. Recovery Church is a church service created by the recovery community for the recovery community.

What is your role in Celebrate Recovery?
I have my Masters in Biblical Counseling, am a women’s evangelist, pastor, and counselor. My husband of 37 years and best friend, Don Lucci, and I wanted to do something powerful for people who are struggling in the Lowcountry. We had heard about the Celebrate Recovery program and decided to start a chapter at Central Church with our pastor’s blessing and the help of dedicated volunteers.

Mission: Support and enrich the lives of women, children and families in our community. Together we have a greater impact than we do individually.

Website: www.jslbeaufort.com

Tell us about the Junior Service League of Beaufort. Who benefits from this program?
JSLB is a volunteer organization of women in the Beaufort community. Each member is responsible for completing volunteer service hours with organizations such as the Child Abuse Prevention Association (CAPA), Hopeful Horizons, Habitat for Humanity, etc. In addition to service hours, each member is also placed on a fundraising committee for the year. Other non-profit organizations can apply for funds via our formal grant process. Our fundraising dollars raised throughout the year are granted at our annual Jubilee event each spring. The grant process evaluates each request to ensure the funds support the JSLB mission.

Mission: To improve the lives of homeless dogs and cats while also working to substantially lower the number of animals reproduced or relinquished.
Locations: 10 Humane Way, HHI, SC 29926 and 10 Pritcher Point, Okatie, SC 29909
Website: www.hhhumane.org

Tell us about Hilton Head Humane Association:
It’s a happy place to work and play—the best job on earth! There is nothing better than taking good care of animals and then finding them the best homes.

What’s new and exciting at Hilton Head Humane Association?
Our new state-of-the-art facility in Okatie has made all the difference as we continue to move forward in helping animals not only in our county, but also across the state. Our public/private partnership with Beaufort County Animal Services has proven to be successful and has opened the doors for us to provide more service to the community.

Walking into the first day of kindergarten can seem like one of the scariest moments in a little one’s life. Everything is new, big and unfamiliar. Hooked to mama or daddy’s leg, tiny tears trickle down sweet cheeks to the tune of the desperate cry of “no” over and over again. By day’s end, parents reappear, and the same hesitant child is now hesitant to go home. Why? New friends, of course.

Friends are the biggest factor for anyone to feel comfortable, especially on the first day of anything. Brie Jones and I met on the first day of kindergarten 16 years ago, and the rest is history. Through one of us changing schools, high school blues and two different colleges, our connection seemed to never sever.

You two are sisters, 2 years apart, and also consider each other your best friend. Please tell us how you avoided sibling rivalry growing up and became so close.
Well, we didn’t totally avoid sibling rivalry. We had our fair share of fights over borrowed clothes for sure! But we probably became so close because we did so many of the same things—swimming on the same team, volunteering for the same organizations, going to the same college. We had similar interests for most of our lives, so we also had similar friends. You hear a lot that siblings become better friends as they get older, that definitely happened with us, too!

After fifty years of friendship, there is nothing these two don’t know about each other’s lives. Any breaking developments are reported immediately, without the need for backstory, and they can read each other’s reactions like a large-print book. Although they don’t have specific memories of their first meeting in kindergarten, they can definitely say one thing: she was there.

“I couldn’t tell you about most of my life,” Tracey jokes. “But Jill could. Any time I can’t remember if I may or may not have done something, I ask her.”

You started martial arts when you were 3 years old? Where has this practice taken you?
I did!  Physically, it’s taken me all over the US for tournaments, trainings, and visiting friends I’ve made through martial arts. In general, it’s built my confidence and leadership skills. It has introduced friendships that have lasted for years and given me an outlet to love people, to give them a safe place, and to make an impact in their lives. I’m able to share the lessons I’ve learned through martial arts like perseverance, confidence, raising up leaders, building family connections, and being a champion in life! 

How has being accomplished in martial arts enhanced your life?
It’s expanded my reach of impact. It’s opened doors for new opportunities to meet people and to build connections, as well as sparking people’s interest in what I have to offer, or what I have to say. People listen when they’re intrigued by what you do and what you say. 

Margaret Miller, affectionately known as M&M, celebrated her first year cancer-free in August. She is a breast cancer survivor, but M&M has cheated death again and again throughout her life—five times to be exact. She believes she has fought and survived because God has a plan for her.

Her first brush with death was as a child. She was taking swimming lessons at a public pool. “I went down and was bouncing off the bottom. Nobody noticed, and I nearly drowned. I still don’t swim,” M&M said. Her second encounter with the Grim Reaper was as a newlywed. “After we married, we moved to California, and I was in a terrible car accident.” Her severe back injury landed her in bed for a month and she received treatments five days a week for a year.

“My battle starts every day when I open my eyes, and it doesn’t end until I close them,” said survivor Maggie Deery.

That battle began a decade ago when Maggie was 17. She was at a friend’s house and asked for a ride home from a girl she didn’t know very well, not realizing the girl had been drinking. (Her blood alcohol level was later found to be twice the legal limit.) Maggie crammed into the little two-door car with four others, and there weren’t enough seats so she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Coming out of Indigo Run on Hilton Head Island at 80 mph, they collided head-on with a tree. The driver died on impact, another boy was seriously injured, and Maggie’s life changed forever. Her neck and spinal cord were severed at various places and she suffered a diffused axonal injury with tiny bleeds all over her brain, causing her to be life-flighted to Savannah Memorial in a coma; doctors told her parents to be prepared to care for her in a vegetative state. She went on to spend six months at Shepherd Center, a brain and spinal cord facility in Atlanta, where youth and strong will contributed to her recovery.

Beneath her United States Marine Corps Campaign Cover, Sergeant Major Sigrid Rivera stands—a woman structured from discipline, hard work, and passion. With pristine posture, a tight, slicked back bun, and not an emblem out of place, Sigrid is nothing short of extraordinary. With a kind heart and a modest disposition, she won’t brag about her incredible accomplishments, but that is why I am here.

Born in Puerto Rico, Sigrid was raised by a powerful mother who assiduously instilled a hard working mindset, the need to be a good citizen, and that reputation is above everything. “She wanted me to attract the right people at the right time. She stood strong in her morals when raising us; there was no room to maneuver around her rules. When I joined the Marines, I felt like it reinforced my childhood,” Sigrid said.

“Stick to the basics; be who you are; don’t ever stop hustling and keep dreaming!” Kissie Pinkston, a certified #GirlBoss, shares these words of wisdom to every dreamer, every entrepreneur and everyone, no matter what age, who wants to achieve their goals.

A self-proclaimed country girl, liver pudding and all, from Savannah, Georgia, Kissie has set her mind to not only be successful, but also to fulfill her innate entrepreneurial spirit to see her business acumen come to fruition. She says it is God-given power that propels her to start businesses and run them skillfully. Kissie has been a successful entrepreneur for years and claims her job as her official happy place. Finding joy in the workplace can be hard, but Kissie finds peace, accomplishment and joy in her achievements.

Women of a certain age may remember studying home economics in school. The Home Economics High School textbook promised to teach girls how to be an ideal housewife. “Have dinner ready, prepare yourself, prepare the children, minimize all noise, be happy to see him, listen to him, make the evening his.” Young women were taught the ideology of the housewife: Maintain the house, prepare meals, take care of the children, help them with homework, do the dishes and laundry—all while remaining elegant. This culture of promise was reinforced by television shows like Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. 

At only 10 years of age, Pattie Michie knew she wasn’t cut out of that particular cloth. Her mind was made up. She was going to be a successful woman in business. And boy, did she break the glass ceiling. Pattie is currently the Club Ambassador at the Country Club of Hilton Head and previously served as private events director. She has worked there for 22 years. “Everyone here is like my family. It’s wonderful,” she said.

Goals seem big when Allison first sets them. In fact, her idea of a worthy goal is one that others laugh at. But by the time they’ve been accomplished, those same goals suddenly seem small. It’s only in hindsight that she can appreciate her achievements.

“I was a very determined child,” said Allison, an agent with Keller Williams Realty in Beaufort. “Those were words out of my mother’s mouth, but looking back, I did dream big and put 100 percent toward my goals. I will say, though, I never dreamed of being a realtor.”

Kelly Wall

Hometown: Varnville, SC
Lives in: Fairfax, SC

Career: Speech-Language Pathologist and Rehab
Program Director at Allendale County Hospital in Fairfax, SC.

Family: Wife of Josh Wall and mother to Brooke (age 12) and
Ben (age 9). I was adopted and raised by my maternal
grandparents Beverly and Lehmoen Futch.

When it comes to Do-it-Yourself (DIY) projects, Pink Magazine is crowning you queen of all time! Tell us about your most recent DIY.
My husband, Josh, and I were considering putting in a pool and after getting prices and doing some research, I toyed with the idea of installing the pool ourselves. I remember the exact moment I decided to go for it: We were out with some friends and “putting in a pool ourselves,” came up in conversation. A couple of our friends politely said: “You can probably do a lot of things but you CANNOT put in a pool.” Obviously, they made the decision for me; I was determined even though I wasn’t sure I could actually do it. My husband was clear that he could not take on such a project due to work demands, so I knew this would be a solo project.

Missy Brown, Valerie Mayer and Lesley Babington have each found their niche at Island Funeral Home in a previously male-dominated industry. Missy and Valerie are funeral directors and Lesley is the director of the crematorium. For each of them it’s not a job, a career, or even a vocation…it’s a calling.

Times have changed from when Valerie went to mortuary school in Syracuse, NY, in 1982, when there were only four women in a class of 25.

Today 60% of mortuary students are women, according to the National Funeral Directors Association; and according to the NY State Funeral Directors Association, the number of female funeral directors has jumped from 5% to 43% over the last 40 years.

“I da Queen Quet, head pun de bodee of de Gullah/Geechee Nation. I live the mission of keeping Gullah/Geechee culture alive in the Gullah/Geechee Nation daily. GOD gave me the vision to unite and uplift Gullah/Geechee folks worldwide and I have focused my energy on doing this via my organization, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition (www.GullahGeechee.net) which:
• Advocates for the rights of all Gullah/Geechee people around the world.
• Promotes and participates in the preservation of Gullah/Geechee
history, heritage, culture and language.
• Works toward Sea Island land re-acquisition and maintenance.
• Celebrates Gullah/Geechee culture through artistic and educational
means electronically and via grassroots scholarship.”

Paula Brown is the small, but mighty kitchen manager of Palmetto Bay Sunrise Café. At a height of only 4’8”, she is like a world-class maestro, orchestrating with precision as she barks out orders to the servers and kitchen staff. She reads the tickets and keeps everything—and every one—in line. She peppers the orders with shout-outs to both regular customers and returning visitors who come back year after year.

When most of us think of skydiving, we consider it a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But for this mother-daughter daredevil duo, it’s commonplace, a hobby like any other. Where some people craft or birdwatch, they throw themselves out of moving aircraft. Since their first skydives about a decade ago, Sue and Brooke have done 950 and 850 jumps, respectively. They even have their own official team name, “Carolina Blonde.”

Cool art vibes saturate the air in every form and medium in the Lowcountry, one of the most beautiful natural canvases on earth. With all the surrounding beauty, it’s no wonder the Lowcountry is teeming with creative, talented artists. Some do it for fun. Some do it for a living. All do it to nourish their organic need to create.

Welcome to our second edition of Lowcountry Originals, where you will meet seven dynamic artisans, all filled will creative energy and verve for their work. They have allowed us a peek into their creative worlds, revealed their fears and doubts, told us what inspires them and given us insight into their processes.

Scroll down to take a creative stroll and step into the
Lowcountry art scene >>

Cool art vibes saturate the air in every form and medium in the Lowcountry, one of the most beautiful natural canvases on earth. With all the surrounding beauty, it’s no wonder the Lowcountry is teeming with creative, talented artists. Some do it for fun. Some do it for a living. All do it to nourish their organic need to create.

Welcome to our second edition of Lowcountry Originals, where you will meet seven dynamic artisans, all filled will creative energy and verve for their work. They have allowed us a peek into their creative worlds, revealed their fears and doubts, told us what inspires them and given us insight into their processes.

Scroll down to take a creative stroll and step into
the Lowcountry art scene >>

Our gorgeous slice of paradise not only attracts visitors, it also attracts the best of the best art educators. Alana Adams was born in Newnan, Georgia, a small town south of Atlanta. She received her BFA in Art Education at Georgia State University with intensive studies in ceramics and sculpture.

“My husband and I decided to move to the beach over 15 years ago, and we landed in Hilton Head. I can remember exactly when I started working here at the Arts Center because it was the date of our first wedding anniversary!” Alana recalled. She joined the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina staff in September 2006 as Manager of Education Services and was promoted to Director of Education two years later. Since 2017 she has served as Senior Director of Education.

Three blank walls. It was all Beverly Jennings needed to set off on a 10-year odyssey that would immerse her into the rough and gritty world of commercial fishing.

Tasked with creating an exhibit on shrimping, crabbing and oystering for the Port Royal Sound Foundation’s Maritime Center in Okatie, the plucky Hilton Head Island retiree began trolling the briny docks of coastal Carolina to learn everything she could about a Southern culture on the brink of extinction.

In the process, she discovered a microcosm of Beaufort County far removed from her comfortable life in Sea Pines. The rugged, weathered men who work on trawlers spend days and weeks at sea, braving unpredictable and perilous waters in search of a big catch. It’s hard, dirty work with long hours and uncertain outcomes.

“When I saw the break of day, I wished that I could fly away instead of kneeling in the sand, catching tear-drops in my hand” —Nora Jones

WANDERLUST! You’ve all heard the word and perhaps wondered what it really means, but those with wanderlust don’t necessarily need to go anywhere in particular, they just don’t care to stay in one spot.

For Lucia Franklin Chastain, her wanderlust started out as a trip for reflection. She never considered herself an overly adventurous person, and those who grew up with her would describe her as a creative—a kind, hard-working, caring friend—but it’s not until you hear her whole story that you know Lucia is a brave ADVENTURER!

Diving with manta rays in Fiji. Scaling glaciers in New Zealand. Crewing tall sailing ships around the Caribbean. Skiing in British Columbia or exploring the back alleys of Dubrovnik. From Hawaii to Hungary, Montenegro to Micronesia—Marija Bumgarner has acquired an impressive travel register. Exploration for her is no mere phase, but a lifelong love that she keeps alive and shares with others.

“I was always the curious kid wanting to run off and learn new things,” says Marija, who was born in New York but relocated with her family to Croatia at age 9. “I was just always wanting to GO.”

Alice Batson of Hilton Head has always excelled in sports. Her father was athletic, her mom, artistic. So in high school she was a runner and swimmer who studied dance and piano. Nowadays she is into extreme water sports and travels the world looking for big winds and water, as well as opportunities to do further training.

“I’m passionate about exploring the planet, seeing new areas, and I love the thrill of the sport and enjoying the world God made,” Batson said. Her new love is kiteboarding where she hovers just above the water and is carried on the wind by her kite. “I love doing new things. It keeps me excited to accomplish new goals and learn new sports. I love being outside, exercising and immersing myself in nature and the beauty of where we live. I challenge myself mentally and physically.”

On the morning of January 6, 2020, the “Office Girls” received a text from Regina Banis that said, “Jake’s dead.”

It was the exact moment Regina discovered her 23-year-old son, Jake, had died from an accidental drug overdose that divided eternity in two. Everything before that precise second was experienced BJD (before Jake died), and everything that followed—every breath, every thought, every sound, every smell, Every. Single. Thing.—passes through a filter of grief labeled AJD (after Jake died). Just that quickly life goes from being experienced to being endured.