Original Gullah Festival gets $10K boost from Beaufort County

The Original Gullah Festival, held every May in Beaufort, got a last-minute cash injection earlier this week courtesy of Beaufort County.

Members of the Beaufort County Council’s Finance Committee have authorized the county to chip in $10,000 to help expand the festival and highlight the national monument to the Reconstruction Era established earlier this year by former President Barack Obama.

“This year was very special with us being given that recognition,” festival vice-president Anita Singleton Prather told the committee. “... We want to make sure our children and our community really understand what Reconstruction was all about.”

The monument includes Darrah Hall on the campus of Penn Center, Brick Baptist Church, Camp Saxton and the Emancipation Oak on the site of the current Naval Hospital Beaufort in Port Royal and a former Beaufort firehouse.

For the 31st annual event, set to begin May 28 at Beaufort’s Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park, Prather said organizers “want to take the festival back to its historical roots.”

“This year we are making an extra effort make sure we include all of Beaufort County,” she said, “and not to see it as a festival just for (the city of Beaufort) and for African Americans.”

The funding mechanism for the county’s $10,000 contribution is somewhat unusual.

“Normally we would expect them to have applied for this money through the Accommodations Tax Committee,” which uses revenue collected from hotels to fund tourism-related groups and events, Councilman Jerry Stewart said.

Instead, county administrator Gary Kubic said his office will enter into “a brief, simple” agreement with festival organizers.

The agreement will provide the $10,000 out of an administrative contingency fund and will require the festival to provide “a supplemental report as to how the funds were spent,” Kubic said.

Councilman Brian Flewelling said earlier this week that he has “a lot of affection for the program, and I think it does a lot of good for the community.”

But he reminded festival organizers that this type of contribution “is a one-time thing” for the county.

This story was originally published April 27, 2017 at 11:23 AM with the headline "Original Gullah Festival gets $10K boost from Beaufort County."