Tree Trimming in Summerville

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCBD) – A Summerville nonprofit organization, Closet of Hope, is making a difference in the lives of children in need.

A storage unit in Sangaree is being used to help children who find themselves in DSS custody.

“Closet of Hope was started by an amazing foster mom named Kelly Green; she and her husband are one of the best foster parents that I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing,” Alyssa Blitch, treasurer, The Closet of Hope.

She realized many foster children only have the clothes on their backs.

They began donating clothes and accepting donations. The project grew into Closet of Hope, a non-profit organization that helps meet that need through several climate-controlled storage units at Storage King off 17-A.

“I’ve been a foster parent in the Lowcountry for almost three years,” said Alyssa. “People look at me and I know I’m very young. I’m only 25. And my goal was to help other kids. My husband didn’t have the greatest childhood growing up, so our mission always was to give kids what we needed when we were younger.”

Alyssa and her husband are using Closet of Hope to provide for kids in need all over the Lowcountry.

“They feel so alone. At this moment they have lost not only their parents but oftentimes kids don’t have their neighborhood friends anymore. They’re pulled out of school, don’t have their favorite teacher anymore, their best friend, they have nobody.”

The organization needs volunteers during nights and needs a variety of donations like clothes, diapers, and other supplies. They also need financial donations.

Alyssa says giving kids what they need is important. “It’s everything. The difference in having a good foster parent and a bad one is the difference in a child’s life. Some children spend years in foster care. My daughter, the one I’m in the process of adopting, has been in foster care for three years and she’s turning 17 next month, and coming to us changed her entire life and the course of her life.”

To learn more or make a donation please visit:

Summerville area restaurants were helped by a federal program as part of the American Rescue Plan Act.

SUMMERVILLE, SC — The Restaurant Revitalization Fund doled out more than $28.6 billion in grants to eateries that sustained financial losses during the pandemic, including several Summerville area restaurants.

The fund was established as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of March 2021. More than 101,000 restaurants received grants as of June 30, according to the Small Business Administration. The average grant size was $283,000.

Restaurants were eligible for up to $10 million in grants, with no more than $5 million per location. Funds don't have to be repaid if they are used for eligible expenses, such as payroll or rent, through March 11, 2023.

The following Summerville area restaurants were among those that received a Restaurant Revitalization Fund grant. Check here for a full, searchable database.

Business: TACO BOY SUMMERVILLE LLC

Business: BUSHIDO II LLC

Business: DWIGHT'S INC OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Business: GUERTIN ENTERPRISES LLC

Business: DAVID BLEASE

Business: TAPIO

Business: WICKED CRUST PIZZA LLC

Business: Just Stuff It LLC

Business: TAYLOR FAMILY ENTERPRISES LLC

Business: PANYA THAI LLC

The Restaurant Revitalization Fund received praise from industry members for its simplicity, but many applicants were shut out when funding dried up in June.

Nationwide, restaurants submitted more than 278,000 applications, totaling $72.23 billion in requested aid. Around 177,000 applicants were denied grants.

There was also confusion about prioritization of funds. The SBA originally prioritized funding for restaurants owned by women, veterans and underserved populations. Some business owners sued, and the SBA ended the practice; around 3,000 priority applicants had grants rescinded, according to The New York Times.

The restaurant industry has lost around $290 billion in sales since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association. Some 90,000 restaurants closed permanently or long-term.

The bipartisan Restaurant Revitalization Fund Replenishment Act proposal would provide $60 billion in additional funding for the program if passed.

"The success of the RRF so far is, in large part, because the SBA focused on making the program simple and accessible," NRA Vice President Sean Kennedy said in a statement. "We appreciate how swiftly they were able to establish a program unlike anything they had administrated before, and believe it has the structure to sustain additional funding."

Editor's note: This post was automatically generated using data from the SBA. Feedback can be sent to content@patch.com.

A preliminary $26 billion settlement was announced July 21 with Johnson & Johnson and the nation’s “Big Three” opioid distributors: AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson.

If approved, many South Carolina communities could receive payments as early as the first quarter of 2022 and together would reap as much as $350 million from the drugmakers over the next two decades.

The settlement includes 3,795 communities across the country within 48 states that the opioid epidemic has impacted. Fifty-four of those 3,795 communities are from South Carolina, including Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties. The settlement also includes the city of Charleston, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant and Summerville individually.

Joe Rice, co-founder of the Mount Pleasant law firm Motley Rice LLC, was a lead counsel for negotiations in dividing the settlement among these communities.

Rice and other counsel wanted to create a settlement that could be accepted by different local governments and would work for all of the affected communities, he wrote in a July 21 blog post.

“The agreement announced today isn’t perfect, but it is a way to provide assistance to states and subdivisions if they agree to the settlement, as well as changes in conduct for these companies regarding their handling of prescription narcotics,” Rice wrote.

The opioid distributors were accused of ignoring red flags and failing their duty to report suspicious orders and the foreseeable black market of addictive opioid drugs.

AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson have agreed to pay a total settlement amount of $21 billion over 18 years. Through the settlement, the companies would not admit any wrongdoing.

“The distributors may not admit to any wrongdoing, but they agreed to pay $21 billion,” Rice said. “You tell me if you think they’re just being generous.”

Johnson & Johnson will pay $5 billion over seven years, Rice said. The company also agreed to exit the opioid business, he said.

Rice said he supported the settlement.

“The important thing is, with the settlement, the money starts now,” Rice said. “And we need the money now. In delaying the money two to three years while trying to get a trial date, the problem is going to be so much worse. These cases are not guaranteed winners, and they are also extremely expensive.”

The settlement is subject to change and could even be scrapped altogether. States have until Aug. 21 to decide whether they will participate in the settlements. The pharmaceutical companies then have 14 days to each determine if they will proceed with the payment.

If the pharmaceutical companies proceed with the settlement, the 3,795 communities each have 120 days to decide whether they will participate in receiving their portion of the settlement. From there, the participating states and pharmaceutical companies must reaffirm their decision to proceed with the settlement.

If all communities in South Carolina were to accept the settlement, the state would receive approximately $350 million over the next two decades, Rice said. For all settlement recipients, 85 percent of the funds are restricted to abating the opioid epidemic.

“You can’t look at this as to what a small community is going to get,” he said. “These epidemics don’t stay within their zip code. We need help uniformly statewide.”

In the settlement, the companies also agree to significantly change their business operations regarding how narcotics are handled, tracked and analyzed, Rice wrote.

The settlement comes after drug dose deaths between May 2019 and 2020 increased more than 20 percent in South Carolina, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. Synthetic opioid deaths, in particular, increased about 38 percent from June 2019 to May 2020.

The increases in drug overdose deaths appear to have accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, DHEC reported.

“Now, as recently confirmed by new data from the CDC, we have an opioid crisis compounded by a global pandemic, so timing is critical to get assistance to our communities,” Rice wrote in his blog post.

Aside from the settlement, other cases continue against other opioid industry defendants, including pharmacies. This proposed settlement does not resolve these cases working through the court system.

In a separate announcement, the American Medical Association urged advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a letter dated July 16 to overhaul the CDC’s current guidelines on opioid prescriptions.

The AMA holds that current restrictions are “devastating for patients with pain” and have harmed those who suffer from cancer, sickle cell disease and other painful conditions. The group also pointed out that the nation’s current opioid epidemic is no longer being driven by prescriptions, but instead by “heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, and stimulants.”

SUMMERVILLE, SC — Applications for the federal Paycheck Protection Program have closed after benefiting more than 11.8 million pandemic-stricken businesses, including many in Summerville.

The Paycheck Protection Program started in April 2020 as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), and was extended until May 31, 2021.

There were 90,624 PPP loans approved in South Carolina in 2021 alone, according to the Small Business Administration. The total 2021 amount approved was $3,058,629,335.

Loan applications were processed through banks and other traditional lenders, with the SBA backing the resulting loans. Around $800 billion in loans were approved nationwide under the program.

The loans are forgivable if borrowers meet certain criteria, including spending at least 60 percent of the money on payroll costs and maintaining employee compensation levels.

Below are some Summerville businesses that benefited from the program according to the SBA. Check here for a full, searchable database.

SCOUT BOATS, INC.

SPORTSMAN BOATS MANUFACTURING, INC.

KNIGHT'S COMPANIES, INC.

SWEETGRASS PEDIATRICS LLC

MCELVEEN BUICK-GMC, INC.

ORIGIN POINT BRANDS, LLC

CHARLESTON GASTROENTEROLOGY SPECIALISTS, PA

AFFINITY HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS LLC

HOOVER AUTOMOTIVE, LLC

SUMMERVILLE AUTO LLC

Nationally, the accommodation/food service industry received the largest share of loans in 2021, with 15 percent of the total.

Around 87 percent of the loans approved in 2021 were for $50,000 or less, and they accounted for a third of the total approved amount. The average loan size was $42,000.

The program wasn't without controversy. Banks tended to prioritize large, established businesses, according to a New York Times analysis. Congress raised fees for small loans in December to encourage lenders to make small business loans, and rules were changed in February to allow unprofitable solo businesses to qualify.

Several large companies drew public ire after it was revealed that they took PPP loans instead of relying on traditional capital-raising activities. The outcry prompted the SBA to review all loan applications over $2 million and issue guidance that the program was intended for businesses that lacked access to other cash-raising methods.

Editor's note: This list was automatically generated using data from the SBA for approved loans of $150,000 or more, although some loans ultimately were not made. Business owners can contact the SBA if information about a loan isn't correct. SBA data occasionally contains duplicate entries. Other feedback can be sent to content@patch.com.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV) — “It changes radically on August 15, so what are we going to do," said William Hayes, who is a concealed weapons permit class instructor at ATP gun shop in Summerville.

August 15 is the date the Open Carry With Training Law goes into effect in South Carolina. Hayes says not many business owners he has spoken to are aware of that.

“When I ask the managers about open carry, which becomes law on August 15, none of them know it’s coming. They all look at me like, what?" he said.

The bill will allow for people with CWP licenses to openly carry a firearm in most situations. Hayes is concerned that when people start walking into businesses across the state with a gun visibly showing, it could cause confrontation.

Berkeley and Charleston County representative JA Moore says that potential problem shows why the law shouldn't have been passed in the first place.

“We have crumbling infrastructure, unclean water, and now what we’re going to have in less than a month now is individuals being able to openly carry a firearm, like we’re living in the wild west," said Moore.

In an effort to stop confrontations from happening, new de-escalation training will be required for people getting CWP licenses, but Hayes says instructors like him will only have eight hours to teach them, when it usually takes two days.

“De-escalation is not easy to teach. You can teach de-escalation by just telling them, this is what you do to de-escalate but the unfortunate thing is that some people’s view of de-escalation is shoot hem first, before they shoot you," said Hayes.

GOP state Senator Larry Grooms, who has sponsored multiple open carry laws over the years, says more firearms will actually lead to less confrontation.

“I fall on the side that having open carry will probably lessen he chance of confrontation. The ones you have to worry about aren’t the ones who obey they law, that would be the ones who have gone through training and have background checks to open carry. It’s the criminals that you have to worry about. When the criminals know that there are more folks carrying weapons, they’re probably less like to use theirs," said Grooms.

Regardless of where you fall on the issue, Hayes says getting out more information on it is what's most important.

If you want to read the full law, you can see it here.