2023 Award

Recipient - Dr. Louise Baucom

 The 2023 Angel Oak Award recipient is Dr. Louise Baucom of Kiawah River Estates. When she was nominated by Shirley Salvo it came with a statement "I know personally how essential she is to the Sea Islands Blessing Basket program, but there is no question that she is an extraordinary volunteer that makes a difference in so many areas of need." Louise has been a volunteer for the Sea Islands Blessing Basket for the past six years. The Blessing Basket is a food distribution program that provides healthy food for economically disadvantaged families. Louise is the Volunteer Coordinator and is responsible for the recruiting and scheduling of 60+ volunteers each month that engage in the purchasing, packaging, delivery and drive-through distribution to 265 families on the second Saturday of every month. She also assists in the Angel Oak Elementary School Summer Program. Dr. Baucom has 38 years of experience in the fields of elementary and higher education. She earned a Masters Degree in Special Education before going into higher education and earning her PhD degree in 1986. She taught teacher education courses and supervised elementary level student teachers at the University of North Carolina for 27 years.

 2022 Award

Recipient - Al Sines

 The 2022 Angel Oak Award was presented to Al Sines from Kiawah Island who volunteers at the CATR, the Charleston Therapeutic Riding facility. Al Works as a sidewalker at CATR, supporting students to ride and build experience with their equine partners.Each year CATR provides therapeutic riding and other equine activities to over 140 children and adults with disabilities and 30 wounded military veterans at their facilities on Johns Island. Beyond helping with riding, his home repair skills are used to keep the facility in top shape by fixing gates, fences, light fixtures and anything else that can go wrong. Al comes from Washington DC where he served as a fireman and EMT before joining the Capitol Police.

2021 Award

Recipient - Charlotte Overton Moran

 "It comes with retirement. You decide to retire, and you think it's golf every day and then you have to figure out with what you're going to do with your life." That's how Charlotte Overton Moran described her path to becoming the 2021 Exchange Club of Kiawah-Seabrook Honoree.

Prior to retirement, Ms. Moran had a successful 33 year career with Citibank in a number of roles focusing on meeting regulatory compliance with all federal and state agencies.

Since retiring and moving to Seabrook Island in 2003, Ms. Moran has become a leader in one of the areas most significant organizations, Sea Islands Habitat for Humanity. Prior to moving to the Low Country, Ms. Moran had done some work with Habitat in New York, so she was attracted to working with them here. She started working with Habitat one day a week, and she has since become one of the organization's leaders, serving her second six year term as a Board Member and Treasurer of the Sea Islands affiliate, as well as leading the Women's Build project each year, chairing the Land Planning committee and working with other builds and repair activities on Johns, James and Wadmalaw islands.

While Habitat is generally known for its construction of homes for people who otherwise would not be able to afford one but are willing to put in sweat equity, Ms. Moran says that Habitat is really four different businesses; a construction company, a retail store, a mortgage company, and a non-profit organization. All of the companies work in concert to deliver a home, and since its founding in 1978, Sea Islands Habitat has built over 400 homes in our community. It's a complex business, the ReStore outlet generates over $ 1 Million in revenue each year, and the mortgage operations currently holds about 216 mortgages. Beyond economics, Habitat works to find qualified homeowners, acquire property, manage construction, and ultimately give a family a new home. Demand is high, there's currently about a one year waiting list for a Habitat home. In addition to building homes, Sea Islands Habitat has a home repair program where individuals can get help repairing roofs and windows and building handicapped access ramps. Over 100 repair projects have been completed to date.

The Women's Build is a pet project for Ms. Moran. Each year twenty-five to thirty women gather for a week to build a Habitat home. While the foundation is in place when they start, the framing and roofing are substantially done by the end of the week. All of the volunteers are trained on site with training ranging from how to use a chop saw to how to wear a hard hat. This year's build is scheduled for April 23-30 and they are still seeking additional volunteers and sponsors.

Information of the project is available at https://www.seaislandhabitat.org/womenbuild.

While incredibly busy with Sea Islands Habitat, Ms. Moran also works with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra League and she's the Chairperson of the Seabrook Island Property Owners Association Elections Committee.

The Angel Oak Award was established by the Exchange Club of Kiawah-Seabrook in 20012 to recognize a volunteer who has made an outstanding contribution to the people or the quality of life on Johns Island, Wadmalaw Island, Kiawah Island and/or Seabrook Island. As a part of the award, the Exchange Club makes a donation of $ 5,000 to a local charitable organization or organizations of the recipient's choice.

2020 Award 

Recipient - Mary Hill

Mary and her husband, James moved to Seabrook Island in 2014 and they have both been passionate in supporting local charities. Mary is a graduate of Clemson University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology. She subsequently received an MBA from the University of South Carolina and went on to a successful career in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. She worked for more than three decades as a Quality Systems and Regulatory Compliance management professional.

Mary is being recognized for her work with the Sea Islands Hunger Awareness Foundation (SIHAF) and for her leadership in the mission and outreach ministry of the Wesley United Methodist Church on Johns Island. Mary became a member of the Board of Directors of SIHAF in 2016 and has served as Board Chairperson for the last two years. In that role she is responsible for overseeing the activities of SIHAF and ensuring compliance with all regulatory and legal requirements of this 501(c)3 organization that sponsors or supports over a dozen local charities and outreach programs. She also manages the annual collection of financial grant requests, organizes the Board review process, and oversees the allocation of funds to these programs. She is "labor" as well as "management" in that she plays a hands-on role in SIHAF fundraising activities, on-site program support and behind the scenes efforts to ensure the benefits to the community. Typical of her resourcefulness and leadership this year in the face of the Covid 19 pandemic, she managed to replace a major fundraiser, the Gullah Festival with a virtual on-line auction that raised a significant amount of money for those charities.

The members of the Wesley United Methodist Church on River Road on Johns Island are also the beneficiaries of Mary's expertise, energy and enthusiasm. Along with her husband James Hill, Mary is Co-Chair of the congregation's Temple Take-out Ministry which serves church members over the age of 65. Pre-covid, the Temple Take-out team, working under Mary's direction, purchased the necessary supplies to cook and deliver hot meals once a month to approximately 85 residents of Johns and Wadmalaw Islands. While James was charged with acquiring the supplies and ingredients required, Mary created the menus, organized and managed the volunteers needed to prepare the meals, helped with the cooking herself, oversaw all of the distribution  and was responsible for fundraising and the financial management of the program. Due to Covid restrictions this program had to be modified and Mary was able to find a caterer to replace the home based cooking that was done previously. This outreach program continues to be successful because of her efforts. Since Covid put a temporary halt to in-church worship, she has made an effort to connect with the 85 members of her community through telephone calls and thus has been a lifeline to people who otherwise are missing the fellowship offered through communal worship.

Mary also actively participates in two other programs sponsored by Wesley United. One is Camp Hi Hope, which offers supplemental educational , recreational and nutritional services for neighborhood school age children during the summer months when schools are closed. The other is the Volunteers in Mission team, which Mary helps coordinate, to assist  church members with maintaining their homes and improving their living conditions.

Finally, Mary is a member of the Board of Directors and currently serves as the Secretary of the Sea Island Habitat for Humanity.

We are so proud and thankful to recognize the great work that she has done in support of all the people of our community!

2019 Award

Recipient - John Sandy

Mr. Sandy has served as the volunteer Field Coordinator for the Sea Islands Water Wellness Mission (WWM) for three years. WWM is a Sea Islands Hunger Awareness Foundation Program. Its sole mission is to put in place new wells and filtration systems for the hundreds of people on Wadmalaw and Johns Islands who suffer from impure water and dysfunctional wells.

2018 Award

Recipient:  Allen Reed

The 2018 recipient was Mr. W. Allen Reed who created and manages the Angel Oak Summer Reading Program at Angel Oak Elementary School on John’s Island. In his remarks, Mr. Reed described how a combination of struggling students, the chronic teacher shortage, increased classroom size, and low funding levels led to underperformance in reading and math for students at Angel Oak Elementary. This was compounded by the learning loss associated with the summer break.

To date, over 300 students have participated in the program and the results have been impressive, with more than 80 percent of participating students improving their reading and math test scores. In 2018, 19 percent of participating students showed a greater than one-year improvement in their reading and math skills after completion of the program.

2017 Award

Recipient: Dr. Victor Agusta

The 2017 Angel Oak Award winner was Dr. Victor Agusta.  He has served as a volunteer primary health care physician at the Barrier Islands Free Medical Clinic (BIFMC) since it opened its doors in 2008. The BIFMC has the mission of understanding and serving the health and wellness needs of uninsured, low-income adults who live or work on Johns, Wadmalaw, and James Islands. The clinic has served over 4000 patients since it opened in 2008 and has over 350 patient visits each month.

As one of the original volunteer physicians at the free clinic, Dr. Agusta dove right into the unfamiliar territory of treating an impoverished population. Rising to the challenge of working with a diverse population, he developed a deep sense of interconnection, patience, and compassion that earned him the trust and respect of both patients and colleagues alike. During a normal week, Dr. Agusta will see patients every Wednesday afternoon and sometimes as needed on Monday evenings. Since joining BIFMC, he has retrained himself as a first rate primary care physician and now spends 5 hours weekly on urology and primary care continuing medical education for state licensing. He has been instrumental in supporting the growth of the clinic as the number one recruiter of volunteer doctors and nurses.

2016 Award

Recipient: Shirley Salvo

≈Shirley is the founder of some and current leader of a broad set of charities providing services to those on Johns and Wadmalaw Islands.  Shirley’s passion for feeding the hungry is well known in our community.

2015 Award

Recipient:  Todd Gerhart

Todd was chosen to receive this Award in recognition of his many contributions  to youth programs on Johns Island and Wadmalaw Island. Partnering with Backpack Buddies, Todd organized the Chili Cookoff at Bohicket Marina and raised $15,000 to help supply weekend meals to children who may well otherwise go hungry.

2014 Award

Recipient: Bertha Smalls-Middleton

Bertha has been the leader of the Wadmalaw Island Community Center providing extensive support to the residents of that island community.

2013 Award

Recipient:  Steve Koenig 

The picture above is of Steve and his family who joined him for the Angel Oak Award dinner.

2012 Award

Recipients: Dr. Arthur Booth and Dr. Charlie Davis

Charlie and Arthur and Charlie were cofounders of the Barrier Islands Medical Clinic.  This organization has provided free medical services to residents of Johns and Wadmalaw Islands serving more than 4000 patience since the Clinic was opened.