DATAW ISLAND
Good Neighbors
story by BARBARA FISHER photos courtesy of DATAW ISLAND
It is early in the morning at the Good Neighbor Medical Clinic of Beaufort, and a man who has known hard labor all his 60 some years is greeted by a volunteer from Dataw. He’s here to see a volunteer medical provider, also from Dataw. Jason (last name removed for privacy) sits alone in the waiting room, but he is far from alone.
For 14 years, he has had the support of a community 11 miles away, Dataw Island.
“I don’t know what we would do without the residents of Dataw,” said Sharon McElveen, who oversees the administrative volunteers at the Clinic. Nearly 1 in 3 of its 100-plus volunteers are Dataw residents. The former medical director, Dr. Stephen Kessel, and the current medical director, Dr. David Baehren, are both Dataw residents, as are many of the administrative staffers, doctors, and nurses.
Dataw is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. From its inception, Dataw members have embraced serving the local community; developer ALCOA encouraged them to be, as the clinic’s name aptly suggests, good neighbors.
And they are. According to a recent survey, 94 percent of Dataw residents volunteer on their island or in the community, giving their time and dollars to no less than 65 nonprofits and charitable organizations. They raise funds for Veterans organizations, sew quilts for children at the Penn Center’s pre-K program, stuff backpacks for migrant workers’ children, organize adopt-a-school volunteers, pick up trash strewn along the highways, wield hammers with Habitat for Humanity, organize blood drives, fill semitrailers with canned food for Second Helpings, and protect sea turtle nests at Hunting Island. And these are just a few examples of their giving nature.
“I grew up here, and I watched Dataw develop,” McElveen said. “They came and contributed — gave to our community, brought the arts to our community.”
Dataw residents give not just from the wallet, but from the heart. They started the Beaufort Symphony Orchestra; raised $1.7 million to help build the area’s first inpatient hospice, Caroline’s Cottage; and last year alone gave $31,221 to continue supporting the Beaufort Memorial Hospital Foundation.
Dataw donated property to build a fire station and helped fund a local water treatment plant on St. Helena Island. While the projects did benefit Dataw, notably they also brought the local area vital services. The late Gloria and John Cartwright of Dataw played a role in bringing another much-needed asset to St. Helena in 2012 — an $11 million branch library.
Today, Dataw residents serve on numerous community boards, from the Historic Beaufort Foundation to the Thumbs Up after-school tutoring and mentoring program. The island’s volunteers are key to keeping the doors open for many nonprofits.
At the Good Neighbor Medical Clinic on the day Jason has an appointment, Dataw resident Al Dedel is working the front desk. Jason is here to see his cardiologist, another Dataw resident.
Jason recalls the day, 14 years ago, when GNMC founding member and Dataw resident Dr. James Warren Goettle listened to his heart and immediately sent him to the hospital, where he underwent surgery to prevent a “widow maker.”
Goettle, a family physician who moved to Dataw Island in 1991, passed away at age 90 in 2016. His obituary noted “a heart that had loved and cared for so many simply came to rest.” His wife Bette, who still lives on Dataw, said her husband and others realized that the uninsured had no choice but to fill the emergency room at Beaufort Memorial Hospital. Early intervention reduces the strain on patients and their wallets, and avoids human suffering, she noted.
“This place, the clinic, has been my lifesaver,” said Jason.
The Good Neighbor Medical Clinic provides free care to uninsured adults. Many, like Jason, are working but lack benefits. They often are restaurant servers, hair stylists, laborers, young people who fell off their parents’ insurance, and the self-employed. When needed — and it is often needed — the clinic negotiates lower fees for specialists and surgeries for patients, and supplies their copays.
Outgoing Executive Director Cassi Kilpatrick, a registered nurse, said that in 2023, they turned nearly $500,000 worth of donations into $4.6 million worth of patient services.
“We have provided total hip replacements, diagnosed cancers, and provided patients with dental, mental health, and addiction care. We treat the whole patient.”
The clinic’s state-of-the art medical center is cheerful and comfortable, thanks to the late Joanne and Alan Moses of Dataw. (The couple also established the Beaufort Fund in 1998 which has invested more than $11 million in Beaufort and neighboring counties, supporting everything from financial assistance for education to environmental programs.)
“Joanne Moses came into the clinic one day and looked around. She wrote us a check for $100,000 to outfit the space to better meet our patients’ needs,” Kilpatrick said.
About 700 individual patients seek help at the clinic each year. The return on investment is impressive: For each dollar donated in 2022, the clinic provided $8.34 in patient services. (To volunteer or donate to the clinic, please go to https://gnfmcbeaufort.org)
On this day, Jason is seeing Dr. Stephen Peskoe, a longtime cardiologist from Indianapolis who now resides on Dataw Island. The clinic, said Dr. Peskoe, “is a blessing.”
For his fellow Dataw residents, such volunteer opportunities are also a blessing. Many wish to give back to a community that has become home, being rewarded just in joy for their professional skills.
Resident Joseph “Woody” Rutter, headmaster emeritus of Beaufort Academy, exemplifies the Dataw spirit: He serves as Board Chairman of Thumbs Up and the Public Library Foundation of Beaufort County, and is on the boards of Historic Beaufort Foundation, the Salvation Army, USCB Chamber Music Festival, and the new Sea Islands Heritage Academy charter school.
Then there is Dataw resident Ed Like, who grew the Beaufort Symphony from a small chamber orchestra, saying during his tenure that 70 percent of all donations came from Dataw. Several of his neighbors also have served on the symphony board, including former Treasurer George Dale and the late Irwin Potkewitz, who was vice president.
Dataw’s impact on Beaufort began while it was still fledgling. A 1986 article in the trade magazine Builder noted ALCOA’s Bill Cochrane spoke to every civic group in town when he arrived to develop Dataw as a residential community and contributed to “a score of Beaufort community associations concerned with everything from the high school to the hospital.”
His legacy lives on in the work of Dataw’s residents. Marilyn Harris, a former Dataw Island Club board member and a veteran of numerous community boards, is Executive Director of the Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Coastal Community Foundation and as Vice Chair of the Board of Commissioners for the Beaufort Housing Authority.
From 2003 to 2004, John Payne, a retired Marine Corps Reserve colonel who lived on Dataw, served as president of the Save Our Bases Committee. Congress had announced it was looking at base realignments and closures, so Payne spent considerable time flying back and forth to Washington, DC, to meet with Congressional committees and state representatives.
“Everyone said they’d never look at Parris Island, but the Marine Corps has two recruit training depots, while the Air Force and Navy get by with one,” Payne said. “We are the smallest service, so we were looked at very seriously.
“But most threatened was our Marine Corps Air Station.” His successful argument to save our MCAS was that the station controls a huge swath of air space on the eastern seaboard, of which the military should not cede control.
“We could see what would happen to Beaufort if we lost the bases,” he said.
Neil Lipsitz, a member of Beaufort City Council, grew up working in his family’s Bay Street department store. He later opened a specialty shoe store downtown and recalls many of his customers were Dataw residents.
“The people of Dataw,” Lipsitz said, “made a major change to the economy of Beaufort and all aspects of the community because they integrated into the community, and they support many nonprofits and charitable causes.
“Dataw has made a big difference for Beaufort.”
With an annual payroll of $6 million recirculating in the local economy, not to mention the tax base and day-to-day living expenses, the positive economy of Dataw’s nearly 1,000 homes cannot be discounted.
However great this contribution is, it is rightly overshadowed by a sense of neighborly care. In just 40 years, Dataw Island members have made a lifetime contribution to the local community. To them, living well means giving well.
Thank you and congratulations, Dataw, on your 40 years of community!
