BENNETTSVILLE—In the second Joint Collaborative Meeting hosted by the Marlboro County School District, leaders from across the county came together and put together an action plan to move the county forward.

At Monday’s meeting, MCSD Superintendent Helena Tillar asked, “What are the things we need to focus on to improve our county? Those will be our discussions.”

The attendees, who included Bennettsville and Marlboro County administrators, William Simon Jr. and Wilson “Tony” Clyburn as well as elected officials from the county council, Bennettsville, McColl, and Clio.

Following the breakout group discussions, everyone brought their discussion notes together so that they could compare notes on issues that are most important to Marlboro County.

“We want to focus on something that we have in common that we’d want to take on as our first project,” Tillar said.

Some of the common issues that were brought up in the breakout groups were affordable housing, recreation, and growth.

“If we’re going to try and change a county that has been the same way for centuries, we have to make things uncomfortable and make thing more radical,” Clyburn said during the discussion. “If we’re going to see change happen then we’re going to have to get outside of the box of what we’ve been doing before. We need to get people from all walks of life to be involved in the conversation so that we don’t just spin wheels and talk about the same thing that we’ve talked about last year and year before.”

Change is a powerful word, Simon said as the discussion continued. “Change looks different to everyone. And when we’re all working together, we have to make sure that we understand the change we’re talking about is different.”

He said to someone older and established in a career, change may not be their priority, but to a younger person, who is trying to learn their way in the world, “change is all they have. Change is expected.”

The group picked three action items to work on this year — and actually show results. Recreation, affordable housing and health care.

“We can’t just talk about it,” Tillar said. “We’ve talked about it and now we need to start to develop a plan. Our next steps will be when we come back the next time is that we’re going to do strategic planning and we’re going to map our how we’re going to do it, who’s responsible for it and who’s going to work with it and when we plan to roll it out.”

At the end of the meeting, Tillar said the partnership in this group is strong and everyone sees the needs in the county and how they intersect.

“The sky is the limit and the things we’ve discussed tonight are attainable,” she said. “We’re just excited about it. In the school district, we’re working on changing our athletic program, our motto now is one dog and with this group, the way I see it is one Marlboro.”