My good friend is the President of a non-profit called Project Unity USA having succeeded his mother as the Project Director. Elizabeth Trezevant was a long-time RN as well as leader of St. John Baptist Church in Columbia. Ms. Trezevant just passed away in March 2023, and was a mother of five children including Bruce Trezevant who is a personal friend of mine and a recent client of the firm. Bruce is an amazing public servant who believes in giving back to the community. This rally will take place at the SC State House on Saturday, July 15, 2023, from 10:00am to 6:00pm with a caravan of Corvettes cruising the Columbia streets symbolizing unity. This not a rally against the Second Amendment but standing up against gun violence across the board, especially in African American communities.

Project Unity USA has many activities that can bring our communities together and is a program that I plan to support going forward. A scholarship named the Elizabeth J. Trezevant Community Scholarship has been set up and will be presented. Please come out and participate this Saturday. Great job, Bruce, and thank you to the other volunteers at Project Unity USA/Columbia branch.

 

This week I’d like to highlight a wonderful restaurant with not only amazing food but a positive impact on the community, Winna’s Kitchen, located on 819 Main St. in Myrtle Beach. Winna’s Kitchen is truly one of the best local restaurants on the Grand Strand and it’s located right next to our Myrtle Beach office! Named after Chef Jess Sagun’s late mother, who went by the nickname Winna, this restaurant is an homage to family, community, and to living life with no regrets. Chef Jess opened Winna’s Kitchen in 2021 and prepares fresh farm-to-table meals with a menu that changes based on the seasons. Experience a true taste of summer in Myrtle Beach by trying out some of Winna’s Kitchen’s famous dishes such as their corn and tomato pie garnished with parmesan cheese, herbs, and seasoning.

Winna’s Kitchen not only serves incredible food but also is in touch with the local community and strives to help feed those in need. The restaurant is set to become a nonprofit this year and focuses on investing in the community. Winna’s Kitchen started an amazing program called “The #1” which is a program to help feed those in need. Patrons can give $5 and in turn receive a meal card which allows them to either give it to someone in need or they can leave it with the restaurant and when a person in need comes in, that person can enjoy a free sit-down meal. Chef Jess believes this is her special way of providing support to the local community through delicious meals. If you find yourself in the Myrtle Beach area this summer, please go check out Winna’s Kitchen!

 

A contingent of our Mike Kelly Law Group family will be manning our tent full of swag, smiles and best wishes as we celebrate America’s birthday next Tuesday. The one-day Peach Festival is full of fun, laughter and good times starting with the Peach parade at 9:30 AM. It will also feature a car show, food galore (focusing on anything enhanced by a peach flavor), live music, and arts and crafts vendors as well as a ton of fresh peaches for sale. The evening will be capped off by a firework show! This will be held at the Gilbert Community Park in beautiful Downtown Gilbert, South Carolina. We hope that you can attend and enjoy all that is peaches and what a small town in South Carolina has to offer. Please come by and see us. We look forward to seeing you there.

 

Michelle is our Senior Litigation Paralegal with thirty-one years of experience. She started out working at our former firm, Suggs & Kelly, at the age of seventeen and worked for us there for sixteen years. She obtained her paralegal degree from Midlands Tech. She worked under my friend and former Suggs & Kelly alumni John Kassel for a year, Fennel & McGuire in Myrtle Beach for two years, eight years in Spartanburg and then back in Columbia for two years before returning to her work home, the Mike Kelly Law Group eight years ago.

The most important people in her life are her son Reece who graduated from South Georgia Technical College in May with a degree in diesel mechanics and is now employed at Blanchard Machinery, headquartered here in Columbia. She also has a daughter Ragan who will be a rising Junior at Spring Hill High School and her husband Nate who is an executive at UPS in Columbia. She has been married to Nate for twenty-three years. In addition to her family and her work, she is involved in many church activities along with her family at St. Andrew’s Church of Christ. She is an avid Gamecock fan (good for her!) and enjoys attending Gamecock football games as well as both men’s and women’s basketball games. She and her family also enjoy a Fireflies game every now and then.

Thank you, Michelle, for all you do for the Mike Kelly Law Group! You are an excellent paralegal!

 

My son Mac who works as a clerk in the Criminal Records Division at the Richland County Clerk of Court office mentioned to me this week that he would be off Monday for Juneteenth. Since I had never fully researched the meaning, I decided to do so and found out some interesting information on Juneteenth from my friends at Google!

I knew that in 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which declared a formal end of slavery in this country, but with my research I learned that slaves in Galveston, Texas did not learn of this until 1865 that they were indeed free (now the world would know it within seconds with the internet!). The next year the people of Galveston celebrated this as Juneteenth which represents the date of the holiday, combining the words “June” and “nineteenth.” The month and day in 1865 when Major General Gordon Granger led Union Soldiers to Galveston, Texas, to announce this life and earth changing news of the end of the war and the freedom of all enslaved people! Although many states celebrated it as a day of observance for many years, it was not until 2021 that it became a Federal Holiday. It will be celebrated on Monday, June 19th here in Columbia and across the Nation.

There will be a family celebration at Segra Park tomorrow, Saturday June 17th beginning at 1:30pm and free to the public for the 7th Annual Juneteenth Freedom Festival with live music, performances, guest speakers, vendors, and lots more! There are many Juneteenth events scheduled across the community over the weekend and the 2nd Annual parade will be Monday on Main Street in Downtown Columbia at 2:00pm.

The Mike Kelly Law Group stands for equality of all our fellow American people, and we support the recognition of this milestone event in the history of America!

 

My son Patrick Kelly is a nominee for Best Local Actor in the Free Times Best of Columbia 2023. My mother once said, “if you can’t brag about your children, you are worthless.” Since I do not want to be worthless, I am going to brag about Patrick in today’s KellyGram.

My oldest son had a milestone birthday this week. He has taken 40 trips around the sun. He caught the acting bug at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School and while in High School he was an apprentice at Trustus Theatre. The founders of Trustus, Jim and Kay Thigpen probably taught him more about life than I did in those formative years! In my humble opinion Patrick is a worthy candidate for the Best of Columbia in the local actor category! He, like my other son, is a multi-talented young adult. Some of the recent things he has done include the lead role in Mr. Burns at Trustus, directing Death of a Salesman last Fall at Workshop Theatre, and summer theater in Almost, Maine at the Arundel Barn Playhouse in Kennebunkport, Maine, which I thought was one of his best performances. He has had lead roles in many plays including The Rocky Horror Show, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and way back in the day the Trustus production of The Graduate. In addition to acting and directing locally he has done theater in Norfolk, Virginia on several occasions and was on stage in two Off Broadway plays at the iconic La MaMa Theatre in New York City. He has also been a Production Manager, teaches as an Adjunct Professor at University of South Carolina School of Theatre, worked with sound design, taught choreography and has additional skills in non-profit management.

To say I am proud of Patrick is an understatement! Earlier this week he graduated from the 2023 Class of Leadership Columbia (I was in in the Class of 1992 – 31 years before him). Either for acting, writing, or directing, local folks need to check him out at his next performances. Also, feel free to vote for my son for the Best of Columbia 2023 – Local Actor. It would be appreciated!

 

The Mike Kelly Law Group office in Myrtle Beach is at the epicenter of the 2023 Carolina Country Music Fest which will be from June 8th-11th in downtown Myrtle Beach. There will be over 40 of country music’s hottest artists including, headliner, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Brookes and Dunn, Travis Tritt, Tracy Lawrence, and the list goes on and on. This will be 4 days of nonstop fun within walking distance of the office! If you have never been to the Carolina Country Music Fest or are a fan of country music this is the place for you. The downtown Myrtle Beach Business Association appreciate the fact that this festival brings attention to our emerging neighborhood and if you haven’t been you have to give it a shot. There are so many other activities going on in addition to the festival that will make for a great weekend to spend in Myrtle Beach. In fact, our parking lot will be used by the festival for auxiliary parking. We look forward to this exciting weekend here on the grand strand!

 

Kimberly Cropper is a native of Augusta, Georgia where she graduated from Hephzibah High School and received her Criminal Justice degree from Georgia Southern University. She then received her paralegal training from Augusta University. She worked at a law firm in Augusta for two years and then was told about a job opening at the Mike Kelly Law Group where we have been lucky to have her for the last 17+ years. A fun fact is that she never looked for either job.

Kimberly is newly and happily married to her husband Louis Cropper and resides in Northeast Columbia. Her greatest passions in life are her husband, her family and her beloved church, River of Life in Winnsboro, SC. She also loves to write and travel.

Kimberly works as our workers’ compensation paralegal for the Columbia and Winnsboro offices. She does an outstanding job, and we are so very blessed to have her. Thank you for always being so thoughtful in all you do for our firm and our clients! Here is to many more years together, Kimi!

 

I grew up in a modest family in Southern Virginia with neither of my parents having a high school diploma. It was a blessing! God has been better to me in my lifetime than I deserve. I have had the opportunities of traveling far and wide experiencing a lot of life that I never thought I would and yet I am still most blessed to represent people that are injured, hurt on the job, sick or disabled.

It is my faith driven philosophy that this law firm gives back to the community. One of the many projects that the Mike Kelly Law Group supports is the Wounded Warrior Project and for the last three years we have had the privilege of being a sponsor for the Wounded Warrior Charity Golf Tournament out of Aiken and Augusta.

The Wounded Warrior Project began in 2003 as a small grassroots effort providing care and comfort items to wounded service members returning home from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This nonprofit organization has greatly expanded to include services for mental health, career counseling, and long-term rehabilitative care. Of these wounded warriors (which MKLG helps with in their disability claims), 75.9% suffer from PTSD, 75.7% suffer from anxiety and 74.3% suffer from depression.

As the saying goes, War is Hell and these people serving their country are heroes! Please consider donating to the Wounded Warrior Project in a location near you.

 

I am very proud of my Partner, Janet E. Rhodes, Esquire for being featured in an article in Super Lawyers magazine. The article provides a fun and quirky outline of Janet’s life as an athlete, singer, and attorney. She truly has had quite a unique journey in life. Please enjoy the article and reach out to Janet for all of your employment law needs.

“Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.” Super Lawyers’ “patented attorney selection process is peer influenced and research driven, selecting the top 5% of attorneys to the Super Lawyers list each year.” Janet has been selected to receive the honor of Super Lawyer each year since 2014. Way to go, Janet! We are lucky to have you!