Restaurant Hero Franchise in Darlington Joins Florence Chamber

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Restaurant Heroes Darlington joined the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce and celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday, April 5th at the Chamber.  Cutting the ribbon was Chief Executive Officer Damon Taylor of the Restaurant Heroes franchise in Darlington. Chamber ambassadors joined in the celebration, along family members.  Restaurant Heroes is a franchise offering consultations services to restaurants.  Taylor said his goal is help restaurants succeed. Some of the services he helps with are employee management, online ordering, document storage, merchant processing, shift scheduling and E-gift cards.  As a restaurant advisor, Taylor, a certified advisor serving the Darlington and Florence area, has been through the rigorous Restaurant Heroes training program.

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Eliza’s Vegan Cafe Food Truck Rolls into Town for Ribbon Cutting

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Eliza’s Vegan Café Food Truck held a ribbon cutting on Tuesday, April 6th at Eats on the Creek, 2402 W. Palmetto St. in Florence, to celebrate its grand opening and membership in the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce. Owner Markeyshi K’Patrick cut the ribbon and was joined by Chamber Ambassadors for the event. People were ready and waiting to try food from the bright yellow food truck that rolled into Eats on the Creek. Originally from Queens, New York, K’Patrick said there are numerous reasons a person becomes a vegan – a person who does not consume any animal or animal byproducts. K’Patrick said she became totally vegan on Jan. 1 2001. “It was my New Year’s resolution,” she said.

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Pee Dee State Farmers Market Joins Chamber

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The Pee Dee State Farmers Market celebrated a return to the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce with a ribbon cutting on Thursday, April 1st. S.C. Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh E. Weathers joined Bob Sager, Pee Dee state Farmers Market manager, in cutting the ribbon. Also attending the event were Chamber Ambassadors.  Weathers said the Pee Dee market is one of his department’s favorites as a drive-through market.  “It is special to us,” he said.  Weathers said he is pleased with the upgrades that have taken place. He said he is appreciative of the partnership between the market and the community.  The Pee Dee State Farmers Market moved to 2513 W. Lucas St. in 1976. Originally it was downtown, Sager said.

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R&D’s Sewing Shop Celebrates Chamber Membership with Ribbon Cutting

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R&D’s Sewing Shop celebrated joining the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce on Monday, March 29th with a ribbon cutting.  Owner Radha Dillah cut the ribbon and was joined by family, staff and Chamber Ambassadors for the celebration.  R&D’s Sewing Shop is located at 302 Dorado Drive in Florence.  Dillah opened her alterations shop in 2007. She offers alterations, monogramming, and custom sewing, including prom dresses, curtains, and leather work. She has one full time employee, and her two sons help her part time.

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Membership on the Rise at Florence Chamber of Commerce

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Membership in the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce has soared since the beginning of 2021.  In the month of March alone, the Chamber has signed up 16 new members, said Jay Lavrinc, Director of Membership Relations.  “Most of them are small businesses; most are female, minority-owned businesses,” Lavrinc said. “I find that interesting and refreshing. Most of these business owners are in their thirties.”  He said many of them are in some type of medical field and have gotten their certification and want to branch out on their own.  He said small-business owners see the benefit of becoming members of the Chamber with networking being one of the biggest benefits. He said many the smaller businesses do not have large advertising budgets and the chamber exposure is helpful to them. Lavrinc said the chamber gets about 4,000 hits a month on its website. Information about the Chamber, its members, and things important to them go out in chamber newsletter, which reaches about 1,700 people, Lavrinc said.

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SC Pecan Festival To Return This Year with New Look and Name

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Florence Downtown Development Corp., and organizers of Florence’s longest-running event downtown, announced the festival’s new name and look for 2021.  The 17-year old SC Pecan Festival is now the SC Pecan Music & Food Festival. The change comes after the 2020 installation of the event was canceled due to COVID-19 last July.  For any individuals attending the 2021 festival, these are the policies and procedures they will be expected to follow and can also expect will be in place. “The SC Pecan Festival is a Florence mainstay, and over the past few years, the festival has started making moves to evolve and change with the community that has long supported it. In that spirit, we are thrilled to debut the brand-new look and name for Downtown Florence’s longest-running event, the ‘SC Pecan Music & Food Festival,’” said George Jebaily, Festival Chairman.

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George Jebaily: Pecan Festival Sparked Florence’s Downtown Redevelopment

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Pat Gibson-Hye Moore had no idea that when she and Jeanne Downing developed the idea to hold a festival in Florence that the idea would be credited 18 years later with igniting the city’s downtown revitalization. Florence Mayor Pro Tempore George Jebaily provided an overview of the history of the pecan festival at a news conference held Tuesday morning to mark the renaming of the festival as the South Carolina Pecan Music and Food Festival.  At end of the news conference, Gibson-Hye Moore said she didn’t have any idea what the festival would develop into, but she was excited to attend the announcement of the renaming and the 2021 festival. “Let’s go nuts, baby,” she said.

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Florence Animal Hospital Celebrates Chamber Membership with a Ribbon Cutting

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Florence Animal Hospital celebrated joining the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, March 23rd  with a ribbon cutting. Joining the doctors and staff were Chamber ambassadors.  The Animal Hospital is located at 2520 Melon St. in Florence, just off U.S. 52 and across from the Pee Dee Farmer’s Market.  The facility opened in mid-June 2020 and is a part of an on-going practice with Ryan James, DVM, and Kenzo Tochiki, DVM. James and Tochiki have been working together at the Hartsville Animal Hospital at 914 W. Carolina Ave. since they purchased that practice in 2014.  We always planned to expand, with the hope that by creating a network of hospitals we would be able to offer the best possible care to our patients,” James said in August to the Morning News. “That was always our goal.”

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Woodforest National Bank Opens Inside Irby Street Walmart

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The Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce welcomed Woodforest National Bank into its membership on Friday, March 19th with a ribbon cutting at the bank’s grand opening of the Irby Street location. The bank is located within the Walmart Supercenter on Irby Street in Florence. Chamber ambassadors joined the staff for the celebration. “We are a full-service bank,” said Kevin Goodwin, Branch Manager. The bank offers individual and business checking accounts, savings accounts, revolving lines of credit, and secured, unsecured and business loans and other services, Goodwin said. With an ATM for deposits and withdrawals, Goodwin said, the branch offers 24-hour banking.

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City Holds Groundbreaking Ceremony for New Sports Complex

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Jeff Jeffers got to see his father’s dream come true Monday, March 22nd. Jeffers spoke about his father at a groundbreaking ceremony for the City of Florence’s $16 million baseball and track complex that will feature a full-size track facility, a stadium for the Florence RedWolves, a high school baseball field, five Little League fields and a joint city-Florence One Schools farm. He said that his father, Billy, served as the recreation director of the city for several years and had always dreamed about having a facility like the one the city broke ground for. Billy Jeffers served as the city’s recreation director from 1958 to 1984.

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