Between May 3–5, laughter and singing echoed through the once-empty streets of the Town of Allendale as the community gathered to celebrate the Yamassee Indian Tribe’s Green Corn festival. The event, which brought dozens of people across the Lowcountry region together, was widely described as a success in a town lacking recreational infrastructure.
“The kids enjoyed themselves and the citizens enjoyed themselves,” said Allendale Town Council member Marlon Creech. “There was a lot going on in that particular timeframe, but people still came out that weekend, they still felt safe, they still were able to come out and enjoy themselves.”
The festival also offered a glimpse into the promise of what community leaders believe recreation in Allendale can be. For years, as the population of Allendale County has declined, the lack of shared recreation spaces has left locals without a place to spend time together. The results, community leaders say, have been wide-reaching.
“Right now, we have nothing,” said Allendale County Council member Willa Jennings, who serves on the county council’s recreation committee. “We barely have a place to meet and come together as a group. Barnwell has so much recreation for their community, Allendale County has never invested in recreation. Leaders like Jennings, as well as citizens within the county, frequently draw connections between the lack of local recreation and an observed generational divide within the community. Some elected officials, like Marlon Creech, see increasing recreational opportunities for young people as a way to prevent gun violence and strengthen community ties.
“We gotta get the older people to come on out and get everybody to connect,” said Marlon Creech, who frequently organizes with young men in the community. “If we don’t connect, are not going to understand and they’re not going to care about shooting up a place. They’re not going to care, so we got to find a connection.”
Building out recreational infrastructure in Allendale frequently faces barriers, despite widespread community support. However, multiple projects proposed in Allendale’s local governments offer a look into what more recreational opportunities could bring, as well as what obstacles these projects face to getting off the ground.
State park proposal
Unlike its neighbors in Hampton and Barnwell counties, Allendale is one of a small number of South Carolina counties without a state park. Yet, by all appearances, the county would be the ideal place for one. In addition to having local support, the county has no shortage of land and is teeming with Lowcountry biodiversity.
Allendale County Council member Willa Jennings has been an advocate of getting Allendale its own state park, a project would require funding and resources from outside the county. At the Allendale County Democratic Party convention in March, where state senator Brad Hutto was in attendance, Jennings pushed Hutto to get Allendale resources in Columbia for the state park.
In addition to attracting new visitors to an area, state parks reconnect communities with the natural world, which in turn help communities facing public health issues, according to Dianne Palladino, the interim director of research and evaluation at the National Recreation and Park Association.
“There’s a lot of evidence that usage of parks can improve physical and mental health,” said Palladino. “It can help lower medical insurance costs for parks and rec users.”
Increasing access to green spaces and the natural world also has the potential to reduce gun violence in communities, according to a 2020 University of Virginia study. Additionally, Palladino said, state parks protect ecosystems like wetlands which will be critical to mitigating climate change as the continued burning of fossil fuels pushes global temperatures higher and higher.
“Conservation resiliency and fixing these areas would make them more resilient to climate change and weather changes, protecting natural resources, improving air and water quality,” Palladino said. “It improves quality of life and there’s just a benefit of having the attraction in the area.”
Despite voicing support, discussions within the Allendale County Council about creating a state park in Allendale often stop at the high upfront costs; the county is currently navigating a financial crunch. In a March interview with
The People-Sentinel, council chair Matthew Connelly voiced support for the idea, but described it as “more of a wish list item.” Additionally, Jennings said the county only owns 12 acres of land that could be used for a state park.
But Jennings also believes the proposal to get Allendale a state park — an idea that originated from Representative Jim Clyburn — has gained community support over time. A state park, Jennings said, would increase the variety of activities young people can do outside of school, like hiking and canoeing.
Community centersIncreasing recreation through building community centers in Allendale hold widespread support. However, community centers are also known locally for their lengthy construction times and budget overages.
Currently, two community centers in Allendale County are in the process of construction.
In October 2023, Marlon Creech won a $25,000 Hometown Economic Development Grant to make necessary repairs to the roof of the Town of Allendale’s Flat Street community center. According to a budget report distributed at a March 12 meeting, $40,000 has been allocated towards repairing the community center.
However, at a March meeting, Marlon Creech criticized the Allendale Town Council for what he saw as a lack of urgency and organization towards making the repairs happen, and as of May 2024, the repairs have not been completed.
A similar story exists in the Town of Fairfax, where the Fairfax Community and Senior Center that began construction in 2019 has yet to be completed. The building, located a stones throw from City Hall, was originally pitched as a space to bring Fairfax together for birthday parties, celebrations and other events. However, so far, the town has spent over $1 million on its construction, including the local relief funds it received through the American Rescue Plan Act.
In South Carolina’s fiscal year 2022–23 budget, state representative Lonnie Hosey secured $4.5 million in earmarked funds to renovate the Town of Allendale's C.V. Bing High School as a community center.
The renovations would take years to complete, and would cost more than what Hosey had secured. Yet the million-dollar price tag of the project doesn’t have to fall entirely on the county. In April, Rory Dowling, a development advisor at 1st & Main Development — a downtown revitalization real estate firm — spoke to the county council about how the county can reduce the cost through taking advantage of a flurry of tax credits.
The C.V. Bing High School was used as a school for Black students during Jim Crow discrimination and has been abandoned for years. But Dowling believes it is eligible to qualify as a historical building both on a state and federal level, which ould get the project access to historic building tax credits. The project would also get tax credits from the state of South Carolina for the renovation of abandoned buildings. The rest of the project, Dowling said, would be financed through a United States Department of Agriculture loan or private lender.
“The cost is pretty significant, but … when you take all of those tax credit programs into play and that it’s a public-private partnership, it makes the project actually feasible,” said Dowling.
Community Swimming PoolFor residents of Allendale, young and old alike, learning to swim within the community has been nearly impossible. For older residents, the swimming pool that once existed in Allendale was racially segregated, and for young people, the nearest community swimming pool is in Barnwell.
“We never had the opportunity in my lifetime to learn how to swim in Allendale,” said Allendale County Council member Willa Jennings. “The only pool that was around was a pool for a different race of people, it was not for African Americans.”
The proposal to get a swimming pool in Allendale faces similar issues to other recreational projects. The project was removed from the county’s recent penny sales tax list, as the council estimated that the costs of the project would be higher than the $500,000 that had been listed.
Despite practical barriers that the local governments face, support for increasing recreational opportunities in Allendale remains high. For older residents like Deborah Creech, recreation can be a way to expand horizons for young and older people in a community where people often feel isolated from each other.
“Kids are very talented, but you have to have some way to find that and explore that,” said Allendale resident Deborah Creech, who would support bringing a state park if it were implemented with proper regulations. “A lot of kids don’t know what they’re talented at until they start doing it.”
Elijah de Castro is a Report for America corps member who writes about rural communities like Allendale and Barnwell counties for The People-Sentinel. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep Elijah writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today.
