Hope steps up

Freedom’s Finds uses thrifting to help survivors of human trafficking

Story by Roxann Edsall
Photos by Richard Rybka

Gabby Martin knows human trafficking is not just a big city problem, a fact she has heard repeated in a number of training events aimed at helping victims. It can happen anywhere at any time.

A recent report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation defines the potential area of vulnerability to human trafficking as “any U.S. community – cities, suburbs, and rural areas.” 

Martin and two close friends, having been stirred by viewing the movie, Sound of Freedom, started a not-for-profit mission in Pell City that hopes to help victims of human trafficking.  Named Freedom’s Harbor, the mission gives a nod to the movie’s name and its mission in helping women who have escaped from or been rescued from traffickers.  They are raising money to build a home for those who have survived this unspeakably painful horror. 

One of the avenues they are using to reach that goal is through the opening of a new resale store called Freedom’s Finds.  Located in downtown Pell City, the 2,900-square-foot store features a variety of previously owned, but well-maintained merchandise at thrift store prices. 

A21’s Kimberly Thompson (left) visits with Ann and Gabby to offer advice on the mission’s direction

“We started the store to build revenue for the house itself and to pay the bills for running the home,” said Martin.  “The plan further down the road is for the ladies who will be living in the home to work in the store if they want to. We want the store to support the mission of giving these ladies a safe harbor to begin the healing process.”

Seven years ago, The WellHouse opened in St. Clair County for women who have been victims of human trafficking. Carolyn Potter, The WellHouse’s chief executive officer, has met with Martin and welcomes any help for these victims.  “There are times when we are full and we could always use help with a place for a lady to stay until we have a place for her,” says Potter. 

Martin plans to position Freedom’s Harbor as a stabilization home for short-term living while waiting for a placement in a facility like The WellHouse, which offers long-term transitional care and counseling. 

Why St. Clair? The very busy Interstate 20, the thoroughfare that bisects the southern part of the county and connects Atlanta to Birmingham, is commonly referred to as the superhighway of human trafficking, because it connects Atlanta to Dallas and is close to Interstate 65 for northbound and southbound travel. 

Adding to the county’s vulnerability is the proximity to Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport, which has been identified as the second busiest airport for human trafficking in the country by the Polaris Project, which operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, in the 17 years since its inception, it has received over 10,000 cases, with more than 16,000 victims, and those numbers are rising. 

In 2021, they issued a report by state, and Alabama’s hotline received 80 cases with 216 victims involved.  It is difficult to quantify the exact number of victims of human trafficking because of the complex nature of the crime and mental health impacts it leaves on its victims. 

Countless victims never come forward due to the physical and psychological abuse from their traffickers. 

In a move to bolster resources and to better focus on ways to help, Martin has reached out to several agencies who have firsthand knowledge of the human trafficking crisis. 

She has gone through training from a number of those resources, including from A21, an anti-human trafficking group whose name stands for Abolishing Injustice in the 21st Century.    A21 operates on six continents and in 21 countries with their mission to “abolish slavery everywhere forever,” a daunting task, considering the International Labor Organization’s estimate of 49.6 million victims of human trafficking worldwide. 

They consider education to be an important part of their focus, including providing information for those, like Martin, wanting to offer services to victims, and offering programs to educate first responders on how to help victims. 

“We also have a school curriculum that is available, designed for ages from kindergarten through high school,” said Kim Thompson, A21’s chief development officer.   “Educating children and youth on what to look out for is an important step in the prevention of human trafficking.”

Thompson tells about launching the pilot program for education in a junior high school and having several students come forward as potential victims of grooming, trafficking and exploitation. 

“One of these students was planning to meet with someone she had connected with online, and because of what the student learned through A21’s curriculum, she shared with her teacher what was happening.  Her teacher alerted law enforcement officers, who were able to identify the individual and keep the student from a potentially dangerous situation.”

Thompson has had a heart for victims all her life.  Her first exposure to human trafficking was early in her career when she was working as a summer camp director and had one of her campers become inconsolable. 

“We were not able to get her to tell what the problem was at first,” said Thompson.  “But eventually she told us her father was raping her and letting others in their apartment complex do the same.  She desperately didn’t want to go home with him.  I was heartbroken.  I didn’t even know what trafficking was at the time.” 

The camp staff contacted the sheriff’s department, who got the FBI involved.  “In the end, the father was arrested, and the girl was removed from the home,” Thompson added.  “Oh, and she was just 12 years old.”

Even the term, “human trafficking,” is often misunderstood.  People tend to focus on the perceived “movement” part of the words.  “Movement is not what makes a situation human trafficking,” explains Thompson.  “People who are smuggled are not necessarily being trafficked.  They’re vulnerable to human trafficking, though, because of their loss of control.  Force, fraud or coercion is what defines human trafficking.” 

Human trafficking includes both sex trafficking and labor trafficking.  Victims of both are lured by the prospects of a better job, better future, other fraudulent promises or are forced into trafficking by a family member. 

They never receive the job, promised future or compensation but, often, stay with their trafficker in response to threats by their captor, which often include threats against the victim’s family. 

“The vast majority of people know their trafficker,” says Thompson.  “They are recruited or groomed by people they know or think they know.  Our children are especially vulnerable because of their online activity.” 

While the number of cases of trafficking in Alabama remains lower than surrounding states, neighboring states Georgia and Florida are among the list of top 10 states for human trafficking cases, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. 

Gabby Martin knows trafficking knows no community size.  “Anywhere people feel trapped or stuck, desperate or abused,” says Martin, “that’s where people are vulnerable.”

Having been in an abusive relationship over a decade ago, she knows what desperation feels like.  She feels lucky to have escaped that situation and to have found a room at a YWCA domestic violence shelter in Eden, a home which has since closed.  “We want to be that beacon of light for women who have escaped a trafficking situation, to help them with a place to shelter, to receive life skills, counseling and to help them become self-sufficient.”

Editor’s Note: For more information or to donate – www.freedomsharbor.com. Freedom’s Finds is open Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Coming in August – A deeper look into the hope and help provided by another organization that supports and provides help to survivors of human trafficking in St. Clair County.

Expanding horizons

BJ’s Diner and McWatering Hole add flavor to Ashville’s food and beverage mix

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Graham Hadley and submitted

Two women returning to their rural roots now run businesses in Ashville, one serving coffee and sweet treats, the other full Southern meals. Bonita Johnson and Ashley McWaters are part of the growing list of female-owned businesses now thriving in the city.

Johnson opened BJ’s Diner in Ashville Plaza on U.S. 231 in January. It was the brainchild of her husband, Darrin, who saw it as a way to repay her for all she did for him during a lengthy illness a few years ago.

“My husband has been a chef for 30 years,” Johnson says. “He was at Flemming’s, Perry’s and other upscale places around Birmingham. Chef Dee is his professional name, and I met him when he worked at Whole Foods on Highway 280. At Whole Foods, you picked your own foods from the grocery section, and he prepared it for you. I would not eat there when he wasn’t cooking. He stopped working there in 2017.”

When they met, she told him she would be rich one day and would hire him to cook for her. “He said he would cook for me for free,” she points out. They married in 2017, and within three or four days of their wedding, Darrin went into kidney failure. Bonita nursed him back to health.

The couple lived in Birmingham during the first few years they were married but wanted to get back to their rural roots. “I’m from Boligee, and he’s from Greenville,” she says. “We live in Oneonta now.”

Their hallmark is Southern foods made from scratch using as many locally sourced ingredients as possible. “Our recipes are from watching our grandmothers cook and tweaking their recipes,” Johnson says. “We buy fresh foods as much as possible, and our goal is to serve no canned foods at all. Our salmon croquettes are from canned salmon, but the croquettes are made by hand. We are connected with local growers on Sand Mountain, in Blount County, and at area farmers’ markets.”

Their entrees and veggies change daily, except for one particular dish. “The only thing that does not change is the ‘liquid gold,’ which is our mac-and-cheese,” Johnson says. “We always have some kind of greens and some kind of beans, too.”

Other dishes include meatloaf, beef stew, fried or blackened catfish filets, fried or blackened Gulf shrimp, catfish nuggets, grilled or fried pork chops and D’s Crack Fried Chicken. They serve traditional sides such as potato salad, corn or onion hushpuppies, garlic mashed potatoes and several types of greens, plus their own Hawaiian coleslaw, which has pineapples in it. Desserts include peach cobbler and banana pudding. They’ll soon be adding homemade ice cream to that mix.

They start prepping as early as 8 a.m. “This isn’t fast food,” Johnson says. “It takes time to hand-cut fries. It takes four hours to make our chicken and dumplings because we roll out our own dough. We also make chicken and dressing. Our veggie menu changes depending on which fresh ones we can get that day. We do have to import some due to seasonality.”

She says Darrin does not season vegetables with meat but has his own special seasonings. He prepares purple potatoes when they can get them out of Pennsylvania.

BJ’s is decorated like an old-timey diner, too, from vintage tin signs advertising RC Cola, Dr. Pepper, Shoney’s Big Boy and various old service stations. She has a juke box on order. The diner seats 75 people and has truck parking available. A big sign is slated to go up next to the road soon.

The printing on BJ’s door says, “Open 7 days a week,” but in truth, it isn’t open every Sunday. “We’re here one Sunday per month,” Johnson says. “We put a sign on the door and post on our Facebook page which Sunday.”

Employees are part-timers who the Johnsons consider family. They also like to bring their customers into the family fold. “It’s not about the dollar, it’s about family,” Johnson says. “We want to know not just how they like our burgers, but did they get that job or raise and, ‘How are your babies?’”

Sometimes customers will give them money to pay for other peoples’ meals when those folks cannot afford to eat. “Sometimes people come in to use the restroom or get a glass of water, for example, and we feed them.” She has dubbed this the Mathew 25:35 Initiative because that passage of Scripture reads, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

The Johnsons don’t want anyone to leave their diner hungry or thirsty.

BJ’s is open Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 a.m. until 8:30 p.m.; Wednesdays from 10:30 a.m. until 4 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays from 10:30 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. The one-Sunday-per-month hours will be posted on their Facebook page and on their front door.

The McWatering Hole a local favorite

More than a coffee shop

Ashley McWaters worked as a dispatcher in the St. Clair County Sheriff’s office in Pell City for 13 years. Born, raised and residing in Ashville, every time she passed by the old Canoe Creek Coffee location on U.S. 231 South in Ashville, she would mutter to herself, “That place really needs to re-open.” One day, she decided she would make that happen. And that’s how the McWatering Hole was born.

“I love this town, and I wanted to be back (working) in Ashville,” she says. “I love to cook, and I like to love people with food. Coming home, seeing people I know and went to school with, keeps me smiling all the time.”

Although not a barista, Ashley has learned through experimentation over the two years she has been open. Her Hot Mama, for example, is an espresso named in honor of her mom, Misty Pruitt, because the latter never drank coffee until a few years ago and would not drink espresso at all because it sounded too bitter. “This one contains Americano coffee with caramel sauce and cheesecake syrup, and a dash of heavy cream,” Ashley explains. She uses only Red Diamond Coffee because it’s local. (The plant is in Moody.)

She offers a Red Bull Refresher for people who don’t like coffee. It contains coconut water and Red Bull in flavors such as Dessert Pear and Blue Raspberry. “It’s a caffeine kick, but you are hydrating as well,” she says.

Blueberry muffins, sweet and savory scones, sausage balls and mini-quiches top her list of edibles to go along with the 20-40 cups of coffee she sells per day. She uses local blueberries for her muffins and features seasonal flavors such as pumpkin scones in the fall. Right now, her seasonal feature is lemonade poppyseed muffins.

 “Our sausage balls sell out every day,” she says. “They are about the size of a meatball, and one serving is seven or eight balls, depending on their size that day.” The size varies because she and her mom eyeball everything during preparation. “We don’t use a scoop,” she says. “We stop when our ancestors tell us to stop.”

She developed her menu through trial and error, not knowing what would sell until she tried it. Most of her recipes came from her own home, and many had been in her family for two or three generations. “Momma cried the first time she remembered making some of these recipes with her grandmother,” Ashley says of her primary employee. “I remember making some with my own grandmother, too.”

Her best-selling sweets are the banana pudding cookies, which require an early-rising customer to sample because they’re gone by 9:30. “Mom and I had been saying if we ever opened a shop, we would sell these,” she says.

She used to serve sandwiches, making the chicken salad filling from her mom’s recipe. But they didn’t sell as well as the sweets, and she frequently had too many left over at the end of the day. “We sold sandwiches for the first six months, then went back to the basics,” she says. “That has worked.”

The newest additions to the menu are the mini-quiches. She makes them in a muffin tin on alternate days than her sausage balls, so she always has something savory on the menu.

As for decor, several tables made by the owner of Canoe Creek Coffee remain, because Ashley didn’t want to erase their imprint from the shop. She has added a vintage record player that is awaiting a new needle and felt pad before it can play those vinyls again. “It’s a 1948 model,” she says. “That’s the year my Maw-Maw was born.”

Weekday clientele consists of locals, while on weekends she gets more interstate traffic. That was boosted when she got the shop listed on Yelp!, Google Maps and I-Exit. “People look up ‘coffee shop near me,’ and we pop up,” she says.Employees besides Ashley and her mom are Meghan Frondorf and on some weekends when Ashley needs a day off, her niece, 16-year-old Kiki Walker. “We’re a family-run business,” Ashley says.

In addition to drinks and treats, she sells logo tees, crystal jewelry by local resident Cody Syler, who owns Unicorn Man Crystals; hair bows by Ashley Mills of Beauty from Ashes; and potted cacti from Terri Goolsby. “Terri is doing a project to catch, spay and neuter stray cats,” Ashley says of Goolsby, another local vendor. “Her proceeds go to her Shoal Creek Community Cat Project.”

She keeps crayons and games to occupy children who come in with their parents or grandparents. During the school year, her own two kids can be seen coloring or studying, because she home schools them and takes them to work with her. “My kids get to see me doing something I love and to see my dream become a reality,” she says. “It lets them know they can do whatever they want in life.”

The McWatering Hole, 36245 U.S. 231, is open Tuesday – Saturday, 7 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Whataburger, Outback Steakhouse coming to Pell City

Story by Carol Pappas
Submitted photos

It has not even been a year yet since Pell City Square opened and already, predictions and promises are right on target.

Two new eating places are about to call Pell City home – one a national brand sit-down restaurant and the other a national fast-food chain.

Whataburger is already under construction on an outparcel near the south end of Pell City Square and is expected to open in a few months. Outback Steakhouse is clearing ground to make way for its arrival in late 2024 or early 2025 on an outparcel next to it.

Whataburger was founded in 1950 in Corpus Christi, Texas. As its history of its name goes, the aim was to serve a hamburger so big it would take two hands to hold it and after a single bite, the customer would say, “What a burger!”  

From that single stand the chain grew to more than 890 locations across the country.

Construction on Pell City’s newest addition to the dining scene began about three months ago, according to Pell City Manager Brian Muenger. “They’re moving at a pretty good pace,” he said, noting that the storefront is already in. Company officials projected opening would be in the third or fourth quarter of 2024. “They’re definitely on pace to hit that.”

Meanwhile, excavation work has begun on Outback in preparation for the company’s general contractor to begin the build. Projections call for opening in the fourth quarter of 2024 or first quarter of 2025.

The Outback project has been much anticipated. The city, in its agreement to lease the property, required location of a national sit-down family restaurant, preferably a steakhouse. “Outback is a very established brand,” said Muenger. “This is a new type of restaurant for the city. We don’t have a name brand out there.”

Outback’s location of a 187-seat restaurant in Pell City should serve as a signal to other corporate restaurants to follow suit.

The Australian-themed restaurant began in 1988 in Tampa and is owned by Bloomin Brands, which operates Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill and Flemings Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar.

It is the latest economic boost in what officials had envisioned for the city when it assumed ownership of the old St. Clair County Hospital property.

But while the focus has been on the Pell City Square and surrounding property of late, retail and restaurant development in other areas has not stopped in areas like Vaughn Drive and Hazelwood Drive, Muenger said.  Interest is growing, and “feedback from prospects has been very strong. Looking forward, people will see a lot more of sit down dining. We’re a viable location. We’re actually working through the development process.”

It’s all part of an ongoing quest by the city, Muenger said, to grow its retail and restaurant community and “provide shopping closer to home so we can keep dollars closer to home in Pell City.”

St. Clair Economic Development Executive Director Don Smith agreed. “The city and county officials have done a great job working with everyone to bring retailers into the Pell City Square that draw from the region, and not just locally. This has opened up more potential customers coming into the city, which then grows the market so more retailers are attracted to invest in the community.”

Healing Vine

New chiropractic center opens in Ashville

Story and photos
by Carol Pappas

When Dr. Steven McKinney and his wife, Janella, decided to open his chiropractic practice in Ashville, it was a homecoming of sorts.

Originally from Boaz, the couple bought a farm just outside Ashville a few years ago. They established their church home there, too. While he was practicing elsewhere, church members asked him to participate in the Ashville Health Fair that was being held there. He agreed and soon came to realize that there was a need to be filled.

A suite became available in the shopping center just across U.S. 231 from their church, and Healing Vine Family Chiropractic Center was a step away from becoming reality. He closed his Boaz practice and opened April 1 in Ashville.

McKinney shouldered much of the cosmetic work himself. The end result is an impressive chiropractic center with exam rooms, office and reception area, offering services from pediatric to geriatric. A former football player, Dr. McKinney also specializes in sports injury and prevention.

Why Healing Vine? The name comes from a piece of artwork displaying the Chiropractic Prayer given to McKinney by his daughter. It featured a vine as the art with the prayer. McKinney put the two ideas together – the healing hands of chiropractic medicine and the vine as a Christian symbol of sustenance.

By combining the two, he said, it expanded the meaning and mission as a Christian-based chiropractic center. Serving families, it is built around his own family with his wife and daughter both working there.

Since the opening, “Ashville has been really great,” said Janella McKinney. “It brings health care to Ashville it was in need of.”

Amen …

Sometimes the ‘Amen’ must come before the prayer.

Sometimes we must have full trust in the ending before we’ve even begun.

As in the garden, we plant and sow good seeds and then we whisper up, ‘Amen’

(which by definition, means ‘so be it’)

Our prayers come later…

Often paired with our productivity.

Our diligence, perseverance and tired bodies become a part of the prayer process.

We dirty our hands and cleanse our souls out in the garden.

And often find that forgiveness, too, can grow out there in the dirt if, like the proverb says, we try our best to “plant kindness and gather love.”

But we won’t always get it right…

…in the garden or life.

Growth isn’t always what we want it to be.

Some things suffer blight, drought or grow weak by insufficient light.

But we learn from our mistakes,

trust we must let go of what we cannot control, press on into a new season, plant again…

…and whisper, ‘Amen.’

– Mackenzie Free –

Wife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama

EDC – Chairmen of the Board

Story by Carol Pappas
Discover Photo Archives

Twenty five years. Three chairmen of the board. One goal.

In 1999, the newly formed St. Clair County Economic Development Council charted a course where no one really knew exactly where it would lead. But they had an idea that if they all worked together, good things would follow.

The sailing wasn’t always smooth, but they stayed the course – through economic good times and downturns, through political administrations and leadership changes. Through it all, their North Star was working together.

The launch

Creation of the EDC “pulled the whole county together,” said Tommy Bowers, who served as the first chairman of the board. “We worked together as a team and supported each other’s prospects.”

When there was a ribbon cutting or a groundbreaking in one area, the rest of the county’s communities showed up in support. It was the premise upon which EDC was built – what is good for one is good for all.

Tommy Bowers

Bowers recalled that the idea of a countywide economic development effort first arose out of the Pell City Industrial Development Board when members Bob Barnett and Ray Cox of Metro Bank proffered the notion that bringing the county together made sense. “They were instrumental in bringing the whole county thing in.”

Every good plan starts with an architect, so they brought former county attorney Bill Weathington in to set up the structure. “A lot of the credit goes to him,” Bowers said.

Because of the success that followed, Alabama Power, long known for its economic development prowess, “used us as an example of how industrial recruiting should work,” he said. “And it wasn’t just county cooperation, it was regional.”

Case in point: Honda Manufacturing of Alabama. Bowers, Commission Chairman Stan Batemon and EDC Board Member Lyman Lovejoy were part of the team that brought the automobile manufacturer to Lincoln in Talladega County. The team also included Calhoun, Talladega, Etowah and Jefferson counties.

In a yearlong, highly secret process under the code name, “Bingo,” the project almost went to St. Clair, but unionization concerns along the I-59 corridor in Etowah steered company officials away from the Steele site.

They considered the Pell City airport property for a time, and they put together a presentation that included relocating the airport.

Then, they looked at the Lincoln site, and a tree may have helped swing the final deal. One of the Japanese representatives “fell in love” with a tree on the property, and it helped sway the decision to that property, Bowers said. Before construction of the plant, they even built a fence around the tree and its root system to protect and preserve it.

At the time, the team didn’t know the identity of the recruiting target, although they eventually guessed it was Honda. The proposal was written in three languages and placed in a leather pouch with “Alabama” embossed on it. The team was even involved in the funding mechanism for incentives. “It’s unbelievable what goes into locating an industry,” Bowers said. “It’s a huge process.”

 And while it didn’t wind up in St. Clair, “it was good for St. Clair County and the City of Pell City. It was good for the whole area,” he said. Today, Honda is the largest employer of St. Clair County people not located in the county – over 1,500.

At the beginning of EDC, they didn’t recruit commercial businesses, but they never limited themselves either. EDC officials realized that commercial recruitment needed the same information as industry, so EDC became a “catalyst” for it, he said.

Moody Mayor Joe Lee cuts the ribbon on Kelly Creek Commerce Park, signaling a promising future for economic development

EDC began to invest in retail recruitment and hired Retail Specialist Candice Hill, who is still with the organization today. She has since expanded her role into coordinating the new countywide Grant Resource Center and Leadership St. Clair County program.

Calling the grant center a “tremendous” step in the EDC’s evolution, Bowers said it is eyed as “the biggest move in EDC history.” He views the first 25 years as phases – industry, commercial and now grants, another innovation to EDC’s credit. “It’s the only program set up like that in the state,” Bowers said.

From the smallest of towns to the entire county, they will be able to identify and effectively pursue grants to fill diverse needs with the help this program will provide.

As for the future, Bowers issued a warning. “We need to be careful we do not lose our current recruiter, Don Smith. He is one of the top professionals across the state. We need to keep him and his team in place.”

Judging by the track record and the potential the future holds, Bowers is right when he talks of continuing the momentum. “We need to be planning now what needs to be next. Things are changing. Who would have thought we would go from industry recruiting to grants?”

Smith, he said, is “forward thinking, and he has a great team.”

Looking back, “it took off up in Steele” and evolved into an economic development leader in the state, Bowers said. “It is quite rewarding to be a part of all that.”

What if?

Lyman Lovejoy served on the board at its inception and became its second chairman when Bowers was named to the county commission. In keeping with its original, guiding principle, elected officials cannot serve on the EDC board, and Bowers stepped down.

Lovejoy was in on the ground floor of plans to create the EDC, so he knew full well what to expect as chairman. He remembered the early days when the idea of the EDC was hatched. “There was not a concerted effort around the county to recruit business and industry. Everyone operated on their own.”

Lyman Lovejoy

If a prospect wanted to look at property in the county, there was not a ‘go to’ person to coordinate although Pell City Realtor Ed Ash was able to successfully locate industries in Pell City early on.

Lovejoy knew the first hire of an EDC director would perhaps be the most important decision they would make. Lovejoy knew of the reputation of Ed Gardner Sr., who served at the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs as director and before that, assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development in Washington. He was an early advocate for Gardner in the position.

The questions Lovejoy had were, “Would he come? Can we afford him?”

The answer to both were yes, and Lovejoy’s conclusion was simple: “Boy, did we hit a homerun.”

Gardner had the knowledge, expertise and the contacts that quickly moved St. Clair into a leading contender as prospects considered Alabama for new locations or expansions.

“We knew it was a good thing for St. Clair County” having two interstates, railroad spurs, industrial sites and a workforce pool, and EDC began to capitalize on the county’s assets. “We started building on that,” Lovejoy said.

The Saks Fifth Avenue distribution center came. So did Yachiyo. Red Diamond moved to Moody. Dozens more from around the region, across the state and around the world would follow over the next 25 years.

It was a success story played and replayed, just like Lovejoy’s own pitch about St. Clair County. “I love my county, and I love telling its story.”

Continuing the legacy

Joe Kelly, too, was on the ground floor of EDC’s creation, serving as a member of the charter board. “I’m the last of the originals,” he said. “I had some vision of what it could be but nothing like what’s come to pass.”

Joe Kelly

He now serves as chairman of the board, a post he has held for the past five years.

Originally, the primary focus was industrial recruitment, he said. The vision expanded with the needs, focusing on retail and quality of life issues, too. “It has evolved into how can we affect the health, wealth and quality of life in the county?”

To get to this point, they had to ask themselves, “Can cities, towns and neighborhoods work together? Is it possible? How do we go about it? It’s remarkable the way it developed into that. The quality of the directors affected that a lot. Still does today.”

The county commission, Kelly said, working with cities and towns became “the glue. Without it, I’m not sure it wouldn’t fragment.”

An important challenge was leveling the playing field, but it was critical to the triumphs over the years. EDC has a working knowledge of cities and towns across the county. “It doesn’t play one against the other,” and as a result, “St. Clair EDC is the envy of a lot of different governments in the state and frankly, nationally and internationally.”

The EDC: Don Smith, Blair Goodgame, Candice Hill, Jason Roberts

Kelly also talked of the promise of the Grant Resource Center. Grants are available, but communities must know about them and go through an often times tedious process without the expertise or manpower. “Why should towns go through all that when the EDC can be involved?,” he asked.

With guidance from the county commission, EDC has stepped up in that role. It is yet another compelling example of putting the EDC to work to fill needs in the county that have gone unmet. It’s a legacy of putting the right people in the right place at the right time and working together to make extraordinary feats happen.

“I’m proudest of helping identify and bring on board people we have had. The quality of the staff – those four people do a lot of work, good work. Our three executive directors all have been superstars. It has been an honor to serve on this board for 25 years and an honor to serve as chairman.”

Its chairmen have been another key component of this legacy of success.