Planned market in Bluffton a ‘godsend’ for local Gullah farmers. Here’s what’s coming
When Andy and Cindy Rolfe moved to Bluffton full time in 2017, they wanted a way to give back to the community.
They saw a hunger in the area for local produce, a place where shoppers knew each other by name and understood exactly where their food came from.
They also recognized that Beaufort County was “a sea of poverty with islands of affluence,” Andy Rolfe said, where the farmers who grow produce don’t always have the means to sell it.
These ideas spawned Lowcountry Fresh Market & Cafe, a market planned for the Washington Square development along Buckwalter Parkway in Bluffton.
The market will sell produce, meats and seafood from local farms and ports and is expected to open next spring. It will feature a cafe serving breakfast and lunch and a kitchen where local Gullah chefs can teach cooking classes, Cindy Rolfe said.
The seafood will come “right off the boat” from area waterways such as Port Royal Sound and the May River, Andy Rolfe said.
The Rolfes, owners of the planned market, are partnering with the Gullah Farmers’ Cooperative Association, based in St. Helena, to buy and sell produce from local farmers.
“We’re not doing this to make a fortune,” Andy Rolfe said. “We hope to take the money that an owner will typically make and provide more to the employees working in the store and the vendors from a margin standpoint.”
At the ceremonial groundbreaking of the market last week, Joseph McDomick, president of the cooperative association, called the partnership with the Rolfes a “godsend” for local farmers.
“They could really help us with some of the produce we were going to grow,” McDomick said. “That’s the life of the thing. Most of the farmers could be out of business without a place to sell. They grow it and just have to throw it away.”
Gullah farmers
The Rolfes’ idea for a locally sourced market came after meeting with local leaders and Beaufort County Economic Development Corporation Executive Director John O’Toole.
O’Toole put the couple in touch with Beaufort County Council member York Glover, who introduced them to McDomick and several Gullah farmers.
“We told them what we were trying to do and what a difficult time we were having,” McDomick said.
The Gullah Farmers Cooperative Association, a group of farmers in northern Beaufort County founded in 2011, is developing the county’s former Leroy E. Browne Services Center on Ball Park Road near the St. Helena Elementary School.
The goal is to transform the building into a place where local farmers can package and distribute their produce.
Although it received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the group was having trouble paying for construction, McDomick said.
O’Toole said the processing plant was “at risk of self-destructing.”
The farmers, he said, “were land rich but cash poor.”
The Rolfes gave the group a loan of $65,000 to $75,000 to help with construction, Andy Rolfe said.
That enables the organization to move forward with construction, which should start in August, McDomick said. The grand opening is expected to happen in January.
The arrangement has become a partnership in which the Rolfes’ market will sell the food produced by farmers from the cooperative association.
O’Toole said the market is expected to create about 40 local jobs and “allows Bluffton to bring the Gullah story to life.”
“These are people who life has been good to that are looking for a way to pay it back,” he said.
‘A seat at the table’
At the groundbreaking ceremony on July 10, local leaders spoke about what the market means for area farmers, particularly in the Black community.
“I love people who can recognize that disenfranchisement exists,” Bluffton Town Council member Bridgette Frazier said. “This represents something we’ve been waiting on. We all don’t have a seat at the table until we have economic empowerment.”
For so long, Frazier said, people have enriched themselves and capitalized on the skills of Gullah farmers. All the while, the farmers have been “shut out of the same opportunities.”
Glover, who represents Beaufort, Lady’s Island, St. Helena Island and Parris Island on Beaufort County Council, said he will be growing asparagus to sell at the market.
The market, he said, will serve as a “destination point” in Bluffton.
Washington Square
The planned 35-acre Washington Square project along Buckwalter Parkway is still in the early stages of development.
The square, to be built on the west side of the parkway near Berkeley Place, will feature retail, residential and office spaces with 36 apartments on top, said Will Howard, the town’s principal planner over land development. The square is also expected to include an 80-room hotel.
Last fall, crews built the central square of the plan, along with a road that connects to Buckwalter Parkway. The square is loosely modeled after the Oglethorpe Plan — the layout of the city of Savannah that emphasizes central town squares.
“It’s really a mixed-use development, with the square being the centerpiece,” said David Johnson, a representative of Speyside Partners LLC. “Hopefully we’ll have some food trucks and people can enjoy lunch on the square, relax there and perhaps have some activities from time to time like a concert or even a little market there occasionally.”
