(Photo/USDA Rural Development) The S.C. Rural Development Council has indentified education as a key ingredient to positive growth in the state's changing rural communities.

And in northern Berkeley County, a tiny town of 1,700 had watched its population slowly dwindle and now is forced to deal with the effects of exurbnization as the town becomes an expanded bedroom community for the Charleston area.

Rural communities, unlike their urban counterparts, are more susceptible to these types of changes and are looking at innovative ways revitalize while still maintaining the small-town feel.

“We are a small state. There are no more than 30 to 40 people involved in community development and no one person in charge of rural development,” said Walter E. Harris, executive director of the Clemson University-based S.C. Rural Development Council. “We currently work within collaborations and as coalitions of the willing, and that seems to work well.”

Working with those coalitions, South Carolina has to look at redeveloping the state’s rural areas, whose economies have ebbed and flowed over the past 40 years, with an emphasis on quality of life.

One of the communities looking to the future and on the right path, according to Harris, is St. Stephen, a community of slightly more than 1,700, located northeast of Lake Moultrie in northern Berkeley County. The town has shown signs of becoming a blossoming bedroom community for Charleston.

 “Our biggest challenge has been one of perception,” said St. Stephens Mayor Robert B. Hoffman. “Berkeley County has had a lot of growth on the south end, but we are somewhat out there, away from the big growth. As a result, we’ve had to battle the feeling that our work force and schools are somehow below standard.”

Several years ago, St. Stephen was $700,000 in debt, in large part because of having to subsidize the water and sewer system that expanded to meet the needs of new residents. The town council subsequently sold the system to Berkeley County, then made a decision to begin actively promoting the community for its historical importance.

“We obtained a grant through the state commerce department and Clemson University and commissioned a study,” Hoffman said. “As a result of that study, we have begun to focus on our positives. Interns from the College of Charleston helped us complete an inventory of historical properties and we have since begun to redevelop those properties. As a result, four or five places have been nominated for spots on the National Register of Historic Places.

“A major problem at the outset was apathy. Today, more and more community members are becoming actively involved in promoting St. Stephen. The future looks good. We have to concentrate on worker training and look at developing engineers and scientists for the future.”

Preparing the rural work force

One of the more successful efforts in the call for increased education came from state Sen. John Matthews, D-Bowman, a retired public school principal.

Several years ago, Duke University, as part of its Rural Carolinas program and through the Duke Foundation, offered funding for underperforming rural communities in North and South Carolina. Over a three-year period, it provided $450,000 in funding for 20 communities.

“Our proposal focused on jobs and training, and funding was provided over a three-year period to six communities statewide through a coalition of rural United Methodist churches,” said Matthews. “We used the money to train people in rural communities so that they could get through the basic application and interview process. The training was based on national standards and, as a result, we placed 94% of applicants in (certified nursing assistant) programs and nearly 70% in jobs in the trucking industry.

“The challenge has been to engage the smaller communities, but we are making progress. In the last three years, we have placed more than 200 workers in the upper-Dorchester, lower-Orangeburg area.”

The Clemson-based rural development council had its beginnings in the 1990s during the first Bush administration.
“The feds created councils that were funded and run through the (U.S. Department of Agriculture). South Carolina was a part of the program from the start. Eventually, 37 states were brought into the mix,” Harris said. “Then, a few years ago, the federal government decided to have the councils become nonprofit entities and cut back government funding.”

In its 2006 annual report, the SCRDC reported:
“Rural South Carolina, because of its agricultural heritage, stagnant population growth, high poverty rates, lower tax base and educational challenges, is not doing as well as the rest of the state. Well-meaning policies designed for urban areas do not always benefit rural citizens in the ways intended by the policy makers. Urban areas are also negatively affected if rural areas are not prospering. Scarce resources are diverted to unsuccessful rural communities from high-growth communities that need them to build new schools, roads, water lines and sewers.

“The viability of rural communities is in everyone’s best interest. The council, while unsure about how to go about developing a comprehensive rural development plan, was unanimous in the need for such a plan and in the need for collaboration.”

Details on how to go about developing such a plan will be the topic of discussion at the council’s meetings in early 2007.

The council is currently working with two Pee Dee Indian groups in northeastern South Carolina and one group in Summerville to develop and implement strategic plans as they relate to housing and health care for tribal members.