Arts, Food, Sanitation Discussed At Taylors Town Square

Attendees at the January meeting of Taylors Town Square were treated to discussions about Greater Greenville Sanitation's aspirations to take its service area into Taylors, a local theater operation in the heart of the community and a non-profit still growing in the Taylors area that aims at feeding the hungry.

Taylors Town Square kicked off its meeting by displaying a map overlay that delineated what the Main Street corridor of Taylors was, as opposed to the Taylors Fire and Sewer District boundaries and even broader lines expanding to the postal zip code for Taylors. 

The map, put together by the Fire and Sewer District, was meant to be a physical representation of the various definitions of where Taylors is. 

The speakers were Noah Stratton, director of The Academy of the Arts Ministries in Taylors, Bo Cable, who who operates The Generous Garden Project and Chuck LaGrange, public information officer for Greater Greenville Sanitation.

Stratton, speaking on behalf of The Academy of the Arts Ministries adjacent to the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, told the audience about the goal of its theatre program. 

"Our goal is always there with all of our productions, is to make people feel important," Stratton said. "Our goal is that each person is special, each person has something to learn." 

The first speaker of the day told the more than 40 people in attendance at the former Taylors post office about Greater Greenville Sanitation's aspirations to reach into Taylors to serve some of its residents for their trash pick-up and recycling needs. 

LaGrange said a survey would likely be sent out in the upcoming months to a sample group of some 1,000 Taylors residents to gauge their interest in their services, with the hopes of expanding their operations in the Taylors "in the very, very near future." 

LaGrange said right now he was hoping to send out a survey to an area of western Taylors in the Roberts Road vicinity. 

"We're looking for a target group of about 1,000," LaGrange said. "Basically we just want to present to them what we offer, come up with rates for services, and see what we get back - really just trying to find out the level of interest." 

Meanwhile, Bo Cable, who operates The Generous Garden Project, a non-profit project that grows crops with which to feed the hungry in Greenville County, told the audience that he was still hoping to develop the some 20 acres his organization owns. 

The Generous Garden Project's main harvest operation donated some 103,000 pounds of produce in 2012. 

"I want to see the same in Taylors," Cable said. 

He added that he hoped to develop the acreage in Taylors to develop a market for area for produce to be sold. 

Although Taylors Town Square is still a nascent organization with a somewhat nebulous mission, Wednesday's meeting saw a moment of community collaboration occur before the crowd's eyes, as Cable told the audience that he could use leaves for a compost operation at the Taylors site. Not missing a beat, Ed Marr of Greater Greenville Sanitation immediately told Cable that he could have truckloads of leaves picked up during their operations driven to The Generous Garden. 

The next Taylors Town Square Meeting will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m., Feb. 6. 

To view a portion of Noah Stratton's allotted speaking time, click on the attached video.