Best Jewelry Store near Mount Pleasant, SC

A three-day festival experience for all things Charlie Chaplin is coming to town. Chaplin, famously known for his mustached, bowler hat-wearing character “the Little Tramp,” was one of the most influential filmmakers of the silent movie era.

His use of slapstick comedy and pantomime in his movies, or dramatic, exaggerated movements in place of words, launched him to international stardom.

On March 23 to 25 at Mount Pleasant Towne Centre, a selection of Chaplin’s films will be played on the big screen, and festivalgoers can learn more about the man behind the icon.

The festival will feature a keynote from University of Pennsylvania professor Dr. Toni Bowers, who teaches an advanced cinema studies course on Chaplin’s silent films. Bowers plans to speak about who Chaplin was beyond the Tramp character, and the lasting impacts his films have had on the film industry.

“We’ll explore the almost uncanny appeal of the Tramp figure on a global stage. I also want to go further than that and think about Chaplin himself, the man behind the Tramp who was definitely not the Tramp in any way. I also want to think about Chaplin’s artistic processes,” Bowers said.

Festival organizer Linda Dennis hopes the event will expose the Mount Pleasant community to Chaplin’s work and educate attendees on the role the filmmaker had in motion-picture history.

“Had Charlie not come out with some of his silent films following the close of World War I, the world would have been a sadder place. He was known for bringing love and laughter to populations who had just gotten over war, so he’s had a huge impact on our culture,” Dennis said.

Events lined up for the festival include a Tramp look-a-like contest, a filmmaking demonstration, and of course, screenings of Chaplin’s films at Regal Palmetto Grande. Festivalgoers can view The Kid (1921), The Circus (1928), Modern Times (1936) and City Lights (1931), which is said to be Chaplin’s personal favorite of his films.

The Mount Pleasant SC Film Festival – Charlie Chaplin Silent Films will be held at Mount Pleasant Towne Centre on March 23-25, with a half-day showing at Barnes and Noble for seniors on Friday and Family Day set for Saturday. Sponsors for the festival include Mount Pleasant Towne Centre, Barnes & Noble, Sweet Julep’s, Filmdomfete and Jon Smith Subs. For a full schedule of events and to purchase tickets, visit mountpleasantscfilmfestival.com.

“It’s not just a film festival. It’s an experience,” Dennis said. “We hope people come and enjoy it and come inside and watch some of the films.”

I don’t have to work hard to convince my fiancé to join me for a weekend trip to visit my parents in my South Carolina hometown. For starters (and this admittedly is a biased opinion), my mom and dad are a delight to be around—but they also live in Charleston, which Southern Living readers have named The South’s Best City several years running. At this point, the Holy City requires no introduction or persuasive arguments in its favor: The booming food scene, colorful historic homes, and waterfront views make the case for themselves. It’s easy to fill a weekend itinerary there, and I’m never able to hit all my favorite spots in just one trip. Here are the places that land on my Charleston bucket list whenever I’m home, from the lauded, well-known destinations to the ones that fly a bit further under the radar.

Leon’s Fine Poultry & Oyster Shop

The worst kept secret in the city is hands-down my favorite restaurant to take visitors, especially first-timers. For me, no other place in town captures so well the relaxed ease that seems woven into Charleston’s very DNA. Housed in an old garage and outfitted with warm wooden tables and an art collection that feels like it was passed down from generation to generation until it landed here, Leon’s is the kind of place that feels like it’s always been part of the Charleston dining landscape—a triumph considering it’s a relative newcomer, opened in 2014. Fried chicken and oysters may be the main draws on the menu, but don’t miss the scalloped potatoes either.

Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge

The two-and-a-half mile cable-stayed crossing between downtown Charleston and the suburb of Mount Pleasant is a scenic place to break a sweat. Climb the hilly spans on the protected pedestrian path, and stop at the top to catch your breath and score a bird’s-eye view of the sparkling Cooper River and downtown Charleston, including the many steeples that earned my hometown its Holy City moniker.

Marina Variety Store & Restaurant

In a destination filled with Instagram-worthy diners and boutique-y brunch spots, this casual, teetering-on-unbothered, harborfront joint isn’t appearing in the curated pages of luxury travel magazines. But at breakfast time, its familiar siren call beckons locals in droves. Here, you can count on a well-poached egg, plenty of salt in your grits, and silver dollar pancakes that’ll please even the pickiest tiny eater.

Croghan’s Jewel Box

When there’s a special occasion to be celebrated in my family, our go-to spot for finding meaningful, heirloom-worthy gifts is this century-old shop on King Street that’s helmed by the third and fourth generations of the same family. Beyond curating an incredible assortment of new and estate jewelry and silver, they also carry the Goldbug Collection, a cheeky, more approachable line of pieces designed in-house and inspired by the city.

Cru Café

Just steps off the beaten path in an old Single House, this Charleston institution (it celebrated 20 years in 2022) serves up a thoughtful medley of flavors in homey surrounds. For a true Holy City experience, snag a table on the porch, and start with an order of the fried green tomatoes, which come topped with sheep’s milk feta, smoked tomato caramel, and pork belly croutons so good that my dad’s been known to order a side dish of just those.

Melton Peter Demetre Park

Only a few miles from downtown, James Island is largely residential without much draw for tourists. It’s where I grew up, and we spent many a low-tide afternoon hunting for sharks’ teeth on the little beach at a place we called Sunset Park. (I’ve since learned that many other locals refer to it as Sunrise Park. Tomato, to-mah-to, I suppose.) For a true locals-only experience, head to the city-owned waterfront spot, where you can picnic with panoramic views of downtown Charleston and Mount Pleasant or cast a line off the 190-foot fishing pier.

Sullivan’s Island

For a quintessential Lowcountry beach day, there’s no stretch of sand more alluring than the pristine shore of Sullivan’s Island, a small barrier island ten miles from downtown Charleston. There’s not a trace of touristy kitsch in this bitty beach town, where historic homes line oak-shaded streets and storybook cottages invite passersby to stop and smell rose-wrapped trellises.

Chez Nous

Tucked in an historic house on a hidden away street, you likely wouldn’t just happen upon this neighborhood eatery that feels like a mini escape to Europe, and that’s half the charm. The cozy surrounds are elevated but inviting, and the handwritten menu of seasonally driven dishes changes daily. It’s fortunate, too, that the menu is so tiny (two appetizers, two mains, two desserts), as it provides a good excuse to order one of each.

Bowens Island Restaurant

Even after nearly eight years in Birmingham, Alabama, there's one thing I still can't stomach: Gulf shrimp. I'll take South Carolina's small crustaceans any day over the rubbery monstrosities they've tried to talk me into eating here. So when I'm home, there's only one place to load up on the good stuff, and that's Bowens Island, a nearly 80-year-old family-owned restaurant perched in a few ramshackle structures on the river. Order a fried shrimp platter with hushpuppies and slaw, or go for the Frogmore Stew (for the uninitiated, that's a shrimp boil), a drool-worthy combination of boiled shrimp, potatoes, corn, and sausage.

The Social Emotional Learning Alliance for South Carolina (SEL4SC) is honored to announce that Dr. Michale J. (Mickey) Barber pledged $50,000 to help the organization promote and advance crucial life skills instruction in all schools, families, organizations and communities in South Carolina.

Formerly a board-certified anesthesiologist, Barber graduated from the College of Charleston, completed medical school at the Medical University of South Carolina, did her residency at Tulane University and finished her fellowship at Harvard. She also served as an assistant professor at Tulane University. During her training and career in academic medicine, she received several awards for her clinical performance and teaching skills.

In her mid-40s, Barber began feeling ill. After months of suffering, she was eventually diagnosed with a neuropathy that was negatively affecting all of her systems. This event spurred Barber to leave her career in the operating room and shift toward a private practice focused on helping people live healthy, vigorous lives at any age. She would eventually receive physician training and certification in age management medicine from the Cenegenics Education and Research Foundation (CERF) and the Foundation for Care Management (FCM), and would be certified in peptide therapy by the Clinical Peptide Society.

She launched the Cenegenics Carolinas LLC practice in downtown Charleston, and would later open Better Life Carolinas in Mount Pleasant.

SEL4SC is dedicated to promoting life skills that can help children and adults properly recognize and process their emotions, which can help them lead healthy, successful lives. That mission overlaps with the care Barber strives to provide for her patients.

“The mind has many, many different chemicals that affect everything from your heart to your gut and even to your muscles and how they work or don’t work,” she said. “Emotions, stress, anger and resentment can affect those chemicals in the brain. That connection is very big, and if you just treat from the neck down, you’re missing a lot. We have to give people the tools they need to deal with the anxieties and emotions they’re having.”

Barber’s partnership with SEL4SC was inspired by the emotional struggles of some of her family members, as well as her friendship with one of her longtime patients, SEL4SC founder Al Estee.

“Al is one of the few men from his generation that has really jumped in with both feet from a personal level with social and emotional learning, and then has found a way to bring it to young people and teachers — everyone, really, across the board,” said Barber. “Al and I have always talked about the emotional component of health, and how to get better at managing that for ourselves and for patients, and so when the opportunity came along to be involved, that seemed like a good thing. We’re very fortunate to have Al out there pounding the pavement and speaking the word.”

Barber’s contribution to SEL4SC will help the organization further its initiatives, which include helping schools effectively teach life skills in the classroom and creating life skills programming and curriculum for parents.

“We are very thankful for Dr. Barber’s commitment to SEL4SC,” said Estee. “Not only has she made a tremendous impact in the lives of her patients, but her contribution will go a long way toward helping us fulfill our mission of impacting countless lives across the state.”

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MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. - March 6, 2023 ROK Technologies, trusted GIS Managed Cloud Services provider, is proud to receive Esri’s 2023 EPC Cloud System Implementation Award. Esri, global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping, recognized ROK Technologies during the Esri Partner Conference for expertise in Ensuring customer success through comprehensive implementation of the ArcGIS system in the cloud.[1] [JAD2] [KB3] This award follows ROK Technologies’ most recent achievement of being the first Esri partners to be recognized with the ArcGIS Enterprise on Kubernetes specialty designation.

ROK Technologies has also earned the ArcGIS Cloud Services, State and Local Government, Federal Small Business, and ArcGIS System Ready specialty designations. ROK Technologies excels in empowering GIS organizations with Esri technology in the Cloud.

“ROK Technologies is honored to receive the 2023 EPC Cloud System Implementation Award. As a Gold Partner in the Esri Partner Network, our sole focus is to leverage cloud-first technologies to enable our clients to expand and modernize their GIS offerings. This award acknowledges and recognizes the diligent work of the ROK Technologies team in support of our clients,” said Alex Coleman, CEO, ROK Technologies.

Esri is the global leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping with a network of over 2800 partners around the world. The award winners are organizations that have demonstrated innovative and creative ways to solve complex problems by using Esri’s ArcGIS software and those who have done exceptional work in advancing geographic information system (GIS) technology. ROK Technologies was one of 27 Esri partners that received an achievement award at the conference.

“Esri congratulates ROK Technologies on their 2023 EPC award in recognition of their innovative work leveraging ArcGIS software,” said Robert Laudati, Director of Global Partners and Alliances at Esri. “We are proud to partner with ROK Technologies to foster the use of Esri technology in support of our mutual customers.”

For more information on how ROK Technologies can take your GIS to the Cloud or partner with you to provide Managed Cloud Services, please contact us.

About Esri

Esri, the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping, helps customers unlock the full potential of data to improve operational and business results. Founded in 1969 in Redlands, California, USA, Esri software is deployed in hundreds of thousands of organizations globally, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofit institutions, and universities. Esri has regional offices, international distributors, and partners providing local support in over 100 countries on six continents. With its pioneering commitment to geospatial technology and analytics, Esri engineers the most innovative solutions that leverage a geographic approach to solving some of the world’s most complex problems by placing them in the crucial context of location. Visit us at esri.com.

About ROK Technologies

At ROK Technologies, our sole focus is to architect, deploy and manage the ArcGIS® Enterprise suite and Desktop applications in Cloud and Hybrid environments. Recognized as a partner in the Esri Partner Network with the ArcGIS Cloud Services Specialty, our team of certified AWS, Azure, and Esri experts bring our many years of extensive, multi-disciplinary knowledge to each and every organization we serve. With scalable, highly durable, and cost-effective Cloud-first technologies, ROK can take the IT and ArcGIS Enterprise management off your plate, so you can focus on what you do best, GIS.

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COLUMBIA — Pam Loudon’s life changed forever nine months after she gave birth to her daughter P.J. Sloat.

Doctors diagnosed P.J. with an intellectual disability and cerebral palsy, an abnormal brain development that affects a person’s ability to control their muscles.

P.J., now 20, is legally blind, uses a wheelchair and requires constant care to perform basic functions. Loudon, 52, had to quit her job as a software developer and devote herself to caring for P.J. The Mount Pleasant family renovated their home, hired a nursing service and bought a used van they rigged with a wheelchair lift.

The family is barely making it work now with a mix of government support and donations through GoFundMe pages, but Loudon worries most about the future.

“A parent’s worst fear is outliving a child. Not so sure that’s the case in South Carolina when you’re caring for a child with a disability,” Loudon said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to P.J. when I cannot care for her.”

If P.J. had to go into state care, she would enter a system that the federal Department of Justice has been investigating since last January for parking disabled people in community residential care facilities, cutting them off from society and violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Advocates for disabled people on Feb. 28 called for the state to create a plan to come into compliance with the ADA and adequately fund services for families like Loudon’s during a press conference at the Columbia Convention Center. If nothing is done, the advocates pointed out that disabled people elsewhere in the country have sued their states into compliance.

“Historically, our clients ... have been segregated, they’ve been warehoused and they’ve struggled for many years to be recognized as human,” said Anna Maria Connor, an attorney for Disability Rights South Carolina.

“Do we want (change) imposed on us by litigation or an outside entity, or do we want to take this opportunity and come up with our own plan?” she asked.

The U.S. Supreme Court found in the 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. decision that the ADA requires disabled people be cared for in the most communally integrated setting possible regardless of their financial means.

South Carolina does not do that, advocates said in a report released this month.

Thirty-five states and Washington, D.C., have Olmstead compliance plans, but South Carolina does not, said Beth Franco, executive director of Disability Rights South Carolina.

Franco called on South Carolina to pass legislation to create a plan, benchmarks to ensure it’s enforced and a state coordinator position to oversee its implementation.

Advocates and families also faulted the state for poorly reimbursing support services, like nursing agencies, and for long waiting lists for state-administered Medicaid waivers. Loudon said her family has not had enough nurses since 2014 due to the tough working conditions and paltry pay driving people from the profession.

“There are some really genuinely great people out there who will do it, but I do feel like we in this state have leveraged their compassion,” she said. “We’ve guilted them into staying in a job that doesn’t pay.”

State Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, pledged to support the advocates’ efforts in the Statehouse.

“We owe it to those who sometimes can’t advocate for themselves to see this work through and improve the lives of millions in our state,” she said at the Feb. 28 event.

Loudon hopes relief comes soon.

“It would provide some hope,” she said as P.J. sat quietly in her chair nearby.