Endowments & Directed Gifts

Our Places Endowment

Pee Dee Land Trust’s Our Places Endowment will help ensure we will be able to meet our mission in perpetuity. More than $400,000 was contributed by 31 “Stewards of the Pee Dee” who each donated $10,000 or more during the first phase (2008 - 2014) of the endowment campaign. The staff and board of Pee Dee Land Trust wish to express our sincere gratitude for those who have given so generously as helped us surpass the Our Places Endowment Campaign Goal to raise $1,000,000 by March 2018.

Our work is certainly not done. We will continue to build our operations endowment to help ensure Pee Dee Land Trust will be able to meet our mission in perpetuity.

Contributions can be made in gifts of cash, appreciated stock, and even real estate. For more information, contact Lyles Cooper Lyles, Executive Director, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 843-667-3229. Please consider your role in this important campaign for the future of Pee Dee Land Trust as a voice for the land -- Long Live the Pee Dee!

Donor Listing

The following donors have committed to the Guardian level with a gift of $50,000

In Memory of William H. Chandler, by The Darla Moore Foundation
Family Legacy Gift In Memory of E. Ervin Dargan, by Caroline, Tim, Timothy & Ellerbe Dargan
Margaret Eugenia Lee
Family Legacy Gift in Honor of the Scarborough Family

The following donors have committed to the Sustaining Steward level with a gift of $20,000+

Diddy and Jim Anderson
Daphne and Dave Aycock
Janet and Buddy Brand+
Mary Alice Ingram Busch
Deborah and Ruell Hicks+
Catherine Rogers+
Pati Martin and Brad Turley+
Linda Russell
Mary Caroline and Wallace Vaught
Family Legacy Gift In Memory of Jolly and Bill Howard, by Snoots and Richard G. Howard
Family Legacy Gift In Memory of Margaret and Evander McIver Ervin, by Ida and Alva Whitehead+

The following have committed to the Steward level with a gift of $10,000+

BC Moore Foundation, Frances and Charlie Bethea, Blackwater LLC, Rhetta and Buddy Calhoun, Marianne and Jim Crawford, Charles W. and Elizabeth H. Coker Foundation, Caroline and Tim Dargan, Linda and Eddie Drayton, DSM, Kirk Dunlap, Anne and Dan Ervin, Louis Eubanks, First Bank, Friend of PDLT, Edwin Haenni, Ella Reese and Billy Hinson, Billie and Alan Houghton , Jay James, Erin and James Johnson, Bee and Steve Jones, Diane and Sumter Langston, Flo, Don and Carol Mabe, McCall Farms, Rosalie Steele and Robert McKenna, McTeer Real Estate, Rita and Harry Moran, Charles and Tommy O’Neal , Palmetto Pulpwood & Timber, Inc., Pearce Land Company, Jennie and Vincent Pezé, Karen and Avie Rainwater, Marie and Tony Shank, Janet and Dickie Sherman, Gwen Strickland & George Strickland, Turner Padget Graham & Laney, PA, Charlotte and David Van Hoose, Al Wallace, WebsterRogers, LLP, Caroline and Keith Williamson, Kathe and Edwin Williamson, Sara Williamson

Howard Family Legacy Gift to Our Places Endowment Campaign

In 2016 Snoots and Richard G. Howard made an extremely generous Family Legacy gift to the PDLT Our Places endowment campaign, to honor the memory of Richard’s uncle, Jolly, and father, Bill. This gift was in addition to their 2008 Steward of the Pee Dee gift and PDLT is now honored to have the Howards as Sustaining Stewards of PDLT. As Richard put it, “I want to inspire others to honor those who are gone, and recognize how they acquired their land.”

The story behind these words is a remarkable one. Armstrong and May Ervin Howard acquired Witherspoon Island in Darlington County in the early 1900’s. They passed it down to Jolly and Bill, Richard’s uncle and father, who established Howard Brothers as a business, farming “out on the hill” and managing the timber. Jolly and Bill were founding members of the Black Creek Protective Association, one of the first organizations in South Carolina focused on watershed protection. When Richard and his cousins Armstrong and Charles inherited Witherspoon they worked on an agreement with Sonoco resulting in 1,200 acres remaining in the family. The land will be passed on to the next generation of Howards with an eye toward conservation. This Family Legacy gift truly fulfills the PDLT’s vision of “Protecting the Past, Ensuring the Future.”

Thanks to the initial operations donation to PDLT by Bruce Richbourg in 2005, we were able to hire Jennie Williamson Pezé as our first Executive Director. In 2011 Mr. Richbourg donated the conservation easement on his 817 acre property along the Pee Dee River in Marion County, Bottle Point Plantation. In an effort to guarantee PDLT as an organization would be in operation for the long haul, he has donated additional operations funding to total $1 million and challenged the PDLT Board of Directors to raise an additional $1 million for an operations endowment by the end of first quarter 2018.

The Our Places endowment campaign deadline is now less than four months from now and we are more than 92% of the way toward our goal of a $1 million endowment to support our core operations indefinitely! We encourage you to contact PDLT Executive Director, Lyles Cooper Lyles by email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone at 843.667.3229 to learn more about how a Family Legacy gift can allow you to honor your ancestors and their love of the land.

Will you become our next Steward, Sustaining Steward or Guardian supporter?

Chandler Award Fund

The Board was inspired to create the William H. Chandler Stewardship Award in 2006 as the highest award the land trust presents and is for individuals, who in the estimation of the PDLT Board have made extraordinary contributions to the stewardship of natural, agricultural or historical resources in the Pee Dee region of SC. This award was created to honor someone who has lived the ideals of stewardship and respect for the world around us that the Pee Dee Land Trust promotes. We lost a truly passionate friend of conservation with the passing of Bill Chandler and we hope a portion of his amazing legacy is keep alive through this award so perfectly named for him. Past recipients have all made substantial strides to lead the land conservation community in the Pee Dee Watershed, including Bill Chandler (2006), Mike McShane (2010), Jay James (2012), Jennie Williamson Peze (2014), Buzz Rogers (2018). The Chandler Award Fund is a restricted fund used to commission the longleaf pine comb bronze relief by sculptor, Alex Palcovich and the personalized mounting of the award for the next recipient.

Contact Us:

843.667.3229

448 W. Cheves St.
Florence, SC 29501

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