Precious Blood’s Taste of Pawleys raises $67,000 for local charities
By Clayton Stairs, cstairs@gtowntimes.com June 18, 2007

Proceeds from the first ever Taste at Pawleys fundraising event hosted by Precious Blood of Christ Catholic Church in April totaled more than $67,000, according to event coordinator Sherby McGrath.
Since this fundraiser brought more than 30 area restaurants together to help feed the hungry of Georgetown County and surrounding areas, church officials recently dispersed the total amount of the proceeds to three different local charities: Father Pat’s Lunch Kitchen ($32,000), Outreach Farm ($21,000) and Baskervill Ministries Food Pantry ($14,000).
“People ask me if we met our expectations, but I think we met our dreams,” McGrath said. “We hoped it would be as successful as it was. It all came together and it was magnificent.”
She estimates that 2,000 people attended and they raised slightly over $90,000 in cash receipts, including $53,125 from sponsorships and $37,814 from admission, door prize and food tickets. They also had $10,800 in in-kind donations, including decorations, linens, photography, wine, water, door prizes, etc., she said.
“Additional sponsors were Plantation Federal Bank, which paid for admission tickets, and Conway National Bank, which paid for T-shirts to identify our adult and youth volunteers,” McGrath said. “Dr. Gerald Congdon, M.D., and Waccamaw Family Medicine supported the ice cream booth. These sponsors helped us keep our expense outlay to around $9,000 for rentals, printing (programs, stationery, posters, signs), newspaper advertisements, security, etc.”
Attendees purchased $22,000 in food tickets. Of that amount, $8,171 was returned to the restaurants as their share.
“Our agreement with the restaurants was that they would get 50 percent of the amount of food tickets they redeemed at the end of the evening and our beneficiaries would get the other 50 percent,” McGrath said. “We had two ‘vendors’ from the church: Our Young Families in Faith group, which had an ice cream booth that raised $367, and our World Youth Day pilgrims, which made $1,767 from the water and soft drink concession.”

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Lunch Kitchen
The Rev. Patrick Stenson, administrator of Precious Blood Church (also known as Father Pat), who says he is thrilled with the success of Father Pat’s Lunch Kitchen, recently started on the church campus. The kitchen, which opened March 7, offers a free hot meal to the hungry in the community every Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. It is located in the Founders Hall on the church campus on Waverly Road west of Waccamaw Elementary School.
He says the $32,000 donation from the Tastes at Pawleys event will help expand this program to help even more people in the county.
“Having this kitchen is a great blessing for the community,” Stenson said. “It is getting off the ground and it is really moving. We are happy with it, so we will see where it leads.”
The summer months have brought more children to the lunch kitchen since they are not receiving a hot lunch daily at school, Stenson said. Because transportation is a problem for many of the people served by the kitchen, Teach My People, a Christian Youth Center also on Waverly Road, has started busing people to the kitchen on Wednesdays.
“It is summertime, so a bunch of kids came this week and they were really happy with the food,” Stenson said. “They said it was wonderful and sponsors said it is wonderful that these kids get at least one good meal here during the week.”
He adds that it is very important to the whole congregation of Precious Blood Church to help the community any way they can.
“We believe if we are good stewards of God’s gifts, we will be blessed in other ways,” Stenson said.
For more information, call the church at 237-3428.

Outreach Farm
Mike LoVullo, executive director of Outreach Farm, says that the $21,000 they received from the Taste at Pawleys event will be a great boost for the coming year. Outreach Farm is a non-profit organization which raises beef cattle in both Hemingway and Pawleys Island to donate meat to organizations that in turn feed those in need.
“This is money that we never expected and it is going to help us out dramatically this year,” LoVullo said.
Outreach Farm now has 65 head of cattle, and last year they made possible approximately 15,000 meals. This year, LoVullo said, they will probably help provide from 25,000 to 30,000 meals.
This organization provides meat, as well as vegetables, to organizations such as Father Pat’s Lunch Kitchen, Teach My People, Friendship Place, Community Kitchen in Myrtle Beach, Tara Hall Home for Boys, The Marine Institute, Mount Olive Church Soup Kitchen and Waccamaw Boys Home in Conway. As they grow, they will add to these organizations as the need arises.
“Outreach Farm is growing at a good pace and we are delighted about that,” LoVullo said. “With the support from the community, and especially the support from Father Pat and Precious Blood Church, we’ve done very, very well.”
For more information, call 240-1777 or visit www.outreachfarm.org.

Baskervill Ministries
Hank Stroup, the outreach coordinator for Holy Cross Faith Memorial Episcopal Church, which sponsors the Baskervill Ministries Food Pantry, says the $14,000 they received from the Taste At Pawleys event will be used solely on food for the pantry.
“The great thing about this gift is that it will last for a number of years,” Stroup said. “It is truly a blessing.”
The Food Pantry is located on the Holy Cross Church campus on Baskervill Drive, just north of Martin Luther King Drive in Pawleys Island, in the same building as the medical clinic. It is open during the same hours as the clinic, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and on Thursday evenings from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
For more information, call 237-3459.