Spectrum Community Center Assist donates $50,000 to Marlboro School Community Center

BENNETTSVILLE—The Marlboro School Community Center received a boost of hope Saturday when $50,000 donation through Spectrum Community Center Assist.

The money will be used for job training and workforce development programs designed to help participants enter and advance in the workplace through job placement assistance, training, and education. Spectrum also donated 25 new laptops and dedicated a new training room to support the organization’s training and technology programs. Additionally, because broadband is a critical component of a community center’s infrastructure, Spectrum will provide MSCC its advanced 1 gigabit-per-second internet service, for the life of the program.

Tyrone Davis, chairman of the MSCC Board of Directors, said everybody will have access to learning computers. “Partnering with Spectrum was just a dream. We started talking some months back, they found us and they wanted to partner with us, wanted to do a technology learning program lab here.”

While the center is located in Bennettsville, Davis said it will be open to everyone in the county. “Everybody will have the opportunity to learn, not just for the young but for elderly folks too.”

“The long-term partnership we are creating with the Marlboro School Community Center will make a real difference in the lives of local residents by giving them the skills, tools and updated facilities they need to improve their economic situation,” said Rahman Khan, Group Vice President, Community Impact for Charter Communications, which operates the Spectrum brand of connectivity services. “Already thousands of people around the country have participated in SCCA in the neighborhoods we serve, and we look forward to working with the Marlboro School Community Center to provide essential job training in a safe and revitalized space.”

Khan said SCCA started in 2021 with the goal of improving 100 community centers across the country.

“We’ve been looking in big cities, like LA and New York, to medium-sized cities like Charlotte and Tampa, Florida. But we also wanted to go to rural areas. And Bennettsville, we weren’t even sure we were going to come here. But we knew we wanted to come here in the south, specifically South Carolina. We started hearing about Bennettsville and the fact that we were about to bring this new technology here, this high-speed broadband that they hadn’t had in the area.”

Spectrum began serving Marlboro County last year. Khan said coming to Bennettsville was a place he knew the program needed to come to, especially when he and his team began doing research on the history of the city.

“We started hearing about the history (of MSCC) and the impact it’s making in the local community and we figured out this was the place we needed to be because of what they’re doing and their commitment to the community.”

Spectrum is doing more than writing a check, through the company’s partnership with Jobs for The Future, MSCC will have assistance setting up the programs that the technology center will offer to the community. JFF is a national nonprofit that drives the transformation of the U.S. education and workforce systems to achieve equitable economic advancement for all.

SCCA also assisted in the creation of a community garden at the school. The fruits and vegetables grown in the garden will be used for food share and culinary classes. The garden itself, according to Jalaya Lyles Dunn, will be a way to build community relations.

“I call this a community building garden, we have so many resources, we have organizations, we have leadership and we have regular people who just live here. When you come here and work together, I call this a civic infrastructure place. Where we can build together. If we can build together, we can live better together.”

Lyles Dunn is the founder of House of J, a wellness lifestyle company focusing on wellness.

Spectrum Reach awarded Kendricks Douglas, owner of Douglas Eatery, the Pay It Forward grant at Saturday’s event. According to the company’s website, since launching Pay It Forward in 2021, Spectrum Reach has invested more than $50 million in advertising and resources and has helped over 2,000 multicultural business owners in 36 states. Businesses range from local coffee shops and restaurants to daycare facilities and law firms—all getting critical support to help their business thrive, including free advertising and creative services, mentoring, and educational resources.