Our Projects
Landscaping Project
Whispers Project
The Friends of the Georgetown Library are partnering with the Georgetown Library in financially supporting the construction and renovation of the Library by assisting with the costs associated with landscaping the grounds around the new Auditorium along Church Street/Route 17.
After the ground is cleaned up from the construction and is rough graded, the Friends project will begin with fine-grading the area, installing an irrigation system, and selecting native, low-maintenance plants to be placed in the several growing areas around the building. Of high priority in the selection process is the choosing of grasses, plants, and shrubs essential to the Gullah Geechee community, past and present.
The Friends are raising the money for this project through our regular fund-raising activities, including the Farmers Market Book Sales, the Community Yard Sales, and the Yuletide Home Tour. However, to reach our goal of $20,000, we will need private donations to supplement the money raised through those activities.
The Friends of the Georgetown Library are working with sculptor Wesley Wofford on a commissioned sculpture that will be named Whispers of My Ancestor for the newly renovated Library. Mr. Wofford is the sculptor who created The Journey to Freedom sculpture of Harriet Tubman that was on display in Georgetown in 2023.
Whispers of My Ancestor will depict Harriet Tubman helping a young James A. Bowley up a set of stairs gesturing upwards towards his future. As Mr. Wofford describes his vision, “It speaks of the power of building on the foundations of those that came before us, and the long-term effects of nurturing education to uplift the next generation.”
James Bowley was Harriet Tubman’s great-nephew. In 1850, at six years of age, he was in the first group of enslaved Africans that Tubman helped to escape from Maryland along the famed Underground Railroad. While the rest of James’ family continued on to safety in Canada, Tubman kept James with her in Philadelphia for three years so that he could gain an education. James would go on to serve in the Union Navy, move to Georgetown in 1867 to work with the Freedmen’s Bureau as a teacher educating freed blacks, become the Georgetown School Commissioner, serve in the South Carolina House of Representatives, serve on the Board of Trustees for the University of South Carolina, and start a local newspaper. James Bowley’s remarkable story and achievements are a direct result of the influence and gift of education that he received from his Great Aunt Harriet.
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