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Efforts at three island apartment complexes help build a better place

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Dressed in a green dinosaur shirt, Daniel Sunkins sipped lemonade as he listened intently to Loni Saunders read a children's book on a new picnic table at Hilton Head Gardens.

Sunkins, who turns five today, was one of about a dozen children and their parents who attended a first-ever reading hour at the north Hilton Head Island apartment complex that is the focus of a major cleanup effort.

Volunteers, residents, management and the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office are working to improve the crime-plagued neighborhood known as the tri-community. It includes two government-subsidized apartment complexes -- Hilton Head Gardens and Sandalwood Terrace -- and The Oaks, which is privately owned.

Saunders, volunteers coordinator of the newly-created Neighborhood Outreach Connection, wanted to build a friendship with the residents. Tuesday's reading hour was a first step.

"My personal feeling is you have to be friends," Saunders said. "You can't just come out here with services and information about services and say, 'I want to help you' "

Following Saunders' lead, the children played "Ring around the Rosey" and sang "I'm a Little Teapot," munching on sugar-free cookies in between.

Residents of Hilton Head Gardens saw their neighborhood fall to what they call its lowest level earlier this year with the stabbing death of 18-year-old Harry Fripp III next door at Sandalwood Terrace. Gunshots and drug deals have become all too frequent, they said.

But recently, things have begun to change.

Sheriff P.J. Tanner walked all three properties with their managers and came up with plans to spruce up the complexes by adding lighting, trimming trees and improving landscaping. That work is ongoing.

The Sheriff's Office also pledged more patrols and opened a new substation in Hilton Head Gardens, the second in the tri-community. The Oaks also has a substation. Eventually, Tanner wants security cameras installed.

Property managers are in better communication with deputies. Police reports involving residents or guests of the three complexes now are being forwarded to the managers who have pledged to evict troublemakers.

"It's much quieter now," said Aquila Holmes, a 24-year-old, single parent of two. "We had a lot of shootings and stuff, but we're trying to make this a better place for kids."

Tanner said he's pleased with the initial results.

"That's encouraging that they're feeling good this early on," he said, "because we've just scratched the surface."

For some children of Hilton Head Gardens, reading hour could be the only time outside of school they're read to, said Miranda Collins, Daniel Sunkins mother.

"I like it because it's educational," said Collins as she headed to work at Hudson's. "It's not something where kids run around and get in trouble. It's educational for those who don't read to their kids at home."

Collins, who is five months pregnant, doesn't fit that category.

She said she reads to Daniel at home and is even trying to raise money for her son's pre-kindergarten class, which is holding a "read-a-thon."

Debbie Carroll, manager of Hilton Head Gardens, said she hopes reading hour will become a routine event for children and their parents. She's planning an old-fashioned Halloween party and hopes other community events help bring neighbors together.

Carroll, who was hired to clean up the complex in February, hung her favorite saying next to the front door of the office: "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."

"We're in the situation where we can help a lot of people," she said. "I just feel that's why I'm here. That's why we're all on this earth."

Zulu Cunningham, 20, called out to a reporter leaving Carroll's office Tuesday afternoon.

"Make sure you mention how beautiful this place is," he said.

Cunningham has volunteered on Saturdays to build picnic tables and clear out the central lagoon which was overgrown and filled with trash.

"I look at this as a process," he said. "Without supports, without a foundation, how can you build a house?"

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