Estate Jewelry in West Ashley, SC

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) — Roper St. Francis and the Medical University of South Carolina Children’s Health have teamed up to open a pediatric center in West Ashley that officials say addresses a needed gap in local care.

“This is really the first step in this collaboration,” Dr. John Pastore, Roper St. Francis Pediatric Medical Director, said.

Medical officials said the new facility addresses a gap in pediatric care as the Charleston area continues to grow.

“Charleston metropolitan area continues to grow, so do the family sizes, of course, and Shawn Jenkins has grown with it, but the pace of our population growth has outpaced even what Shawn Jenkins can serve,” Dr. Megan Baker, Chief Clinical Officer at Roper St. Francis Healthcare, said.

Some residents said traveling downtown for pediatric care presented challenges, including parking difficulties, flooding, traffic and childcare issues.

The new center will treat low-acuity pediatric conditions for patients requiring shorter hospital stays.

“I want to focus on the type of care where patients will be in the hospital for a shorter amount of time and have a lower severity of illness, so things that are easy to manage, such as pediatric mild asthma exacerbations, community-acquired infections and community-acquired pneumonia,” Pastore said.

One of the center’s main goals is maintaining family unity during treatment.

“Closer to home for many of our patients and keeping families together,” Baker said.

The children’s ward starts with eight rooms and will expand to 16, including a lab and other inpatient services. The facility includes a playroom that doctors said children need for recovery.

“This is being hospitalized is such a stressful time for children. Trying to preserve some semblance of normalcy is so important. Thus, we have pet therapists. We’re going to have child life specialists and even just a little playtime. One of the reasons I went into pediatrics is because children do not become their disease. Children want to be children, and this is how we promote that, and that’s part of their well-being,” Pastore said.

Officials said this represents the beginning of expanded services they plan to provide. Staff hope for the center to open in early December.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) – One of South Carolina’s oldest and busiest roads, carrying more than 50,000 cars a day, could soon see safety improvements thanks to a push from lawmakers.

State and Lowcountry leaders say long-term improvements are coming to Ashley River Road, also known as Highway 61, but the project will take time and significant funding to complete. For many travelers, congestion and potential danger have become cause for concern.

Since the plan was first announced in August 2024, State Rep. Gary Brewer has helped secure $2 million from the state budget to fund a preliminary study. Charleston County has since completed the procurement process and turned the study over to a third-party contractor.

The next step, a preliminary design, will require an additional $5.9 million. Brewer says he plans to request that funding during the upcoming legislative session in January. Even if it is approved, he says that the full project, which includes studies, public input and construction, is expected to take about nine years and cost more than $100 million.

The need for safety improvements is clear. Between 2017 and mid-2022, the South Carolina Department of Transportation recorded 2,008 car crashes, 28 bicycle accidents and 18 pedestrian crashes along just one section of Highway 61.

“In about a mile and a half stretch, we’ve got to have everything that you can possibly imagine,” Brewer says. “We’ve got to sit down and go through and figure out where we can widen, where we can’t widen, how we can stage construction, what would improve flooding, what would improve traffic flow, how we can get students safely in and out of their school, everything, people in and out of their neighborhoods. So, there’s a lot to take in.”

Brewer says improving Highway 61 has been one of his top priorities since he took office. When he first ran for his seat, he says the message from residents was loud and clear.

“When we ran the first go-around, we knocked on a little over 6,000 doors,” Brewer says. “Knocking on those doors, the No. 1 priority was infrastructure. And the No. 1 priority amongst infrastructure was specifically this corridor on the West Ashley end of my district.”

That feedback, he says, is what drives him to keep pushing for progress even when it takes time.

“I live in the West Ashley end of my district. I see it every day, but hearing my neighbors and my friends and my family and my constituents talk about how tough it is to travel that road and seeing every day the head-on wrecks and the issues that we have, it’s something that’s got to get done yesterday. It’s something that we can’t afford to kick down the road even more,” he says.

Brewer says conversations about improving Highway 61 are not new. He says many local and state leaders before him discussed similar plans, but they never made it past the planning phase.

“It had been brought up multiple times and remembered by multiple predecessors, but it was always told it couldn’t be done,” he says. “I think that we found out that all you’ve got to do is force the conversation and you get to a point where you can actually make the project happen.”

Brewer also says one major hurdle is the state’s lengthy procurement process, which can delay construction for years before work even begins.

“There’s a lot going on in our state at the state level right now to be able to improve our procurement. Right now, it takes about five to seven years to get to construction, and then construction is usually the quickest part. Once they get to construction, it usually moves a heck of a lot quicker,” he says. “So, we’re working on that right now to help give some tools to the counties to be able to speed up the pre-construction and the procurement processes.”

While large-scale changes may be years away, some smaller safety improvements could arrive sooner. In March of this year, SCDOT proposed updates including high-visibility crosswalks, bike lanes, accessibility ramps and new pavement markings. The department also plans to install technology aimed at reducing pedestrian and angle collisions.

Brewer says these upgrades are just the beginning of a much larger effort to make Highway 61 safer and more efficient for the thousands of drivers who rely on it every day.

Construction on those safety projects could begin as early as 2026.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — It may look like a simple wooden box, but for many West Ashley families, it means everything. Blessing Boxes are small, community-run pantries where neighbors can “take what they need and leave what they can.”

With the recent government shutdown delaying SNAP benefits, many Lowcountry families are struggling to put food on the table.

The motivation is that there are people in our community who rely on SNAP benefits, and because of the government shutdown, those benefits were delayed,” Kenneth Marolda, Co-Founder of West Ashley Connects explained.

Although benefits are set to be partially funded again, local leaders say the help may not go far enough.

“As we head into the holiday season, the partial funding may not be sufficient even to meet their daily needs, let alone holiday celebrations,” Marolda added. “And this is a way that we can help provide relief.”

The West Ashley Connects neighborhood group manages several of these Blessing Boxes across the area, filling them with canned goods, baby formula, hygiene products, and snacks. Volunteers say it’s their way of helping when larger systems fall short.

“I can’t provide official aid in any other way,” Marolda said. “But we can do what we can here to help make sure that people are fed.”

There are two main ways to get involved. You can drop off nonperishable food or hygiene items at four local partner businesses: Highfalutin Coffee Roasters, Café Rocha, Frothy Beard Brewing Company, and Shift Pilates Studio. Volunteers collect these donations regularly to restock the boxes.

You can also contribute financially to West Ashley Connects through PayPal or Venmo. Every dollar goes directly toward purchasing nonperishable items for the boxes.

We’re going to do it as long as we can,” Marolda said. “As long as people will donate and as long as there’s need. So either when the need is gone or when the funds dry up.”

Blessing Box locations and donation sites are:

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Just a week after his wife, a man pleaded guilty to charges relating to squatting in a West Ashley home.

Christopher “Nate” Marcum, along with his wife, Evelyn Pollard, and Daniel Byrd, on Dogwood Road, along with destroying the personal property of the family who lived there.

Affidavits stated that the trio removed the homeowner’s belongings and incinerated them in the backyard, attempting to conceal evidence that the owner still lived there. That personal property included couches, bedroom furniture, and living room furniture.

A day after their arrest, charred remains could be seen in the backyard surrounded by what appeared to be tiki torches.

Before the January charges, Marcum and Pollard were the subject of months of in which multiple West Ashley homeowners alleged that they had been squatting in their homes.

Marcum’s plea hearing took place on Wednesday in front of Judge R. Kirk Griffin. Marcum’s sentencing terms are similar to his .

The terms of Marcum’s deal are as follows:

Pollard’s plea deal suspended five years of prison time to 27 months of probation, the first nine of which are being spent in a residential treatment facility. She was also referred to substance abuse counseling.

Beyond the squatting-related charges, today’s plea deal resolved Marcum’s 2023 methamphetamine charge.

Marcum’s public defender, Martha Runey, said that he has a West Ashley trailer that he plans to live in after release.

The last defendant in the case, Byrd, is set to plead on Oct. 31. Assistant Solicitor Jewell Gearding, who prosecuted Pollard, indicated during her hearing that Byrd is expected to receive probation.