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FEBRUARY 4–10, 2021 WWW.YOURISLANDNEWS.COM
COVERING BEAUFORT COUNTY
Beaufort County residents struggle to land vaccine appointments South Carolina makes national news for first cases of variant By Mindy Lucas Beaufort County resident Estelle Ford-Williamson began trying to get an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it became available to ages 70 and older.
“I have grandchildren who I want to be more comfortable around,” said Ford-Williamson, who began entering her information into the Vaccine Administration Management System, or VAMS, in hopes of getting an appointment locally. But after running into the same technical error that kept kicking her off the online system, she decided to take a break. It wouldn’t have mattered any-
way. Friends of hers that had gotten through and made appointments with Beaufort Memorial Hospital, had their appointments canceled. On Friday, Jan. 15, the hospital announced their expected shipments of more than 2,000 doses would not be coming after they were notified by the state their orders could not be filled. As a result, the hospital was forced to cancel more than 6,000 scheduled
appointments, hospital officials said, and additional requests had to go unscheduled. Undeterred, Ford-Williamson got back on her computer to try again – this time on Publix’s vaccination site. The Florida-based grocery chain recently announced, it would begin offering the vaccination to those ages 70 and older in South Carolina as well as other states and one of Ford-Williamson’s Facebook friends
in Georgia had gotten through. However, once again her efforts came up empty as the Publix site wouldn’t produce an appointment. Finally, after calling the Medical University of South Carolina, Ford-Williamson got through. She and her husband are now going to drive 75 miles to Charleston – something they don’t mind doing if it
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BCSD condemns racist post, forms task force
Rep. Nancy Mace, center, tours Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island on Wednesday, Jan. 27. Brig. Gen. Julie Nethercot, the depot commanding general, gave Mace a personal tour of the base to showcase integrated recruit training companies and training facilities. Photo by Lance Cpl. Samuel C. Fletcher, USMC.
Mace tours Parris Island Visit first for Republican as Congresswoman
By Mike McCombs Representative Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) visited MCRD Parris Island on Wednesday, Jan. 27. It was the first visit to Parris Island for Mace since she was sworn in as a freshman Congresswoman earlier this year. The visit was requested by Mace, who represents South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, which includes Beaufort County and it’s three military
By Mike McCombs “Sometimes I walk in and say ‘What are we going to do?’” Aileen LeBlanc said. “But somehow, it always seems to work out.” LeBlanc works for HELP of Beaufort, the largest volunteer organization and food pantry in Beaufort County, and it has continued to see a substantial increase in food emergencies over the same time a year ago. That was hammered home earlier this month. On Tuesday, Jan. 12, 51 families came to HELP asking for help. That is an all-time high for a single day for the organization. Counting family members, HELP
installations. She was given a personal tour by Brig. Gen. Julie Nethercot, the depot’s commanding general. According to Natalie Johnson, Mace’s Director of Communications, the Congresswoman was interested in integrated training companies, training facilities and how the base was handling COVID-19 protocol. In general, she said, Mace was just getting the “lay of the land.”
A late September story, initially published by Military.com then by other news sources, reported Marine Corps commandant Gen. David Berger was considering closing the Corps’ two existing training locations – Parris Island and MCRD San Diego – in favor of a new integrated base where male and female recruits would train together. The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act gave Parris
Island five years to make training for male and female recruits equal. The report caught South Carolina leaders off guard. Then U.S. Representative Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.) and the state’s Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott took to social media to voice support for Parris Island.
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assisted 231 people that day. “I was happy that we had it,” LeBlanc said. It is primarily food donations from the public that stock the shelves for Help of Beaufort. Eighty percent of the food comes from donations. The rest comes from the USDA and what staff purchases at local grocery stores. “If we don’t have it, we have to go out and buy it,” LeBlanc said. LeBlanc has only been with HELP since about the time COVID-19 began to rear its head. But in that time, demand for food has increased
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HELP of Beaufort volunteers help distribute food to dozens of families each week. Photo courtesy of HELP of Beaufort.
NEWS
MILITARY
INSIDE
Rotary Club turns canceled Christmas dinner into help for needy.
The Marines behind the scenes: A look at the Parris Island Black Shirts.
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By Mindy Lucas Officials with the Beaufort County School District say they will form a task force to address racism after they were made aware of a racist post circulating on social media last week. The announcement was made at a press conference held on Friday, Jan. 29, at the district’s office in Beaufort, in which both the post and racist behavior were condemned. “We are hurt that this situation occurred in one of our schools, but it has shown a light on some of the negativity that we have seen recently in our nation,” said the school district’s superintendent Frank Rodriguez. The post, made by another student, included a photo taken of three Black members of the Bluffton High School basketball team, without their knowledge. Below the photo were the words “(expletive) monkeys.” At Friday’s press conference, which also included parents of the boys targeted in the post, Rodriguez said that the school district does not tolerate “racism, hatred or divisiveness in any form.” “We’re better than this and this is not who we are,” he said. “We have an expectation that these racist behaviors will not exist in our schools.” Rodriguez said the student behind the post had been identified and disciplinary action had been taken. While he wouldn’t say what that entailed, he did say it was “severe.” One parent at the press conference tried to summarize how the students had felt and were feeling. “These are kids where they come from generations of natives,” said Kenneth Frazier Jr. “They have grown up in their home, in their parent’s home, grandparents and great grandparents, and it’s such a tragedy that they don’t feel connected to where the spirit of their lineage was birthed.” Frazier went on to say he was extremely proud of the boys who handled the situ-
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