Pee Dee Land Trust was honored to have over 400 conservation supporters join us last month to help us celebrate the 10th Annual PDLT Oyster Roast, at Hobcaw Barony, Georgetown, SC. It was our largest and most successful Oyster Roast event ever.  This experience's supporters helped raise over $17,000, which we are proud to report is a 35% increase over the previous best revenue year! Attendees enjoyed the delicious food, visiting with new and old friends, the silent auction, spectacular views of Winyah Bay and the live music by The Spots. We could not put on such a wonderful experience without the help of our PDLT Board Members, PDLT volunteers, auction donors, our sponsors and attendees!

Check out all the fun photos from this experience in our photo gallery.

We truly appreciate our PDLT Member's patience with us while we worked through some details in order to expand the maximum number of attendees allowed by Hobcaw Barony.  Here are a few key points about this year’s event we’d like to share with you:

•  Each year we strive to increase event revenue while providing a uniquely enjoyable experience for our guests

•  Our sponsorships are essential, since the ticket prices barely cover the cost per person for this event, and we were very fortunate to secure additional sponsors for this year's event in order to increase the net revenue

•  As a result, we had less tickets available for sale (60% of the sponsor tickets were used by already current PDLT members and the majority of the remaining tickets were used by potential members). We also had an unprecedented response for
    tickets and this was so exciting- we had not sold out all tickets in the past until the week of the Oyster Roast 

•  We worked through some parking restraints at the site, and were able to get tickets for all Members that expressed interest in joining us -- there were no current PDLT Members left on the waiting list. 

•  We are working with our Board to institute future plans for invitation dispersement to popular events and the most fair way to sell tickets that will also allow us to
    continue to raise the needed funds to operate. 

PDLT is making great progress with “Our Places”, the second phase of our operating endowment campaign.  Dr. Alva Whitehead, Chairman of the Our Places campaign, spoke briefly about our endowment campaign during the announcements at the Oyster Roast.  We currently stand at just over 60% of our goal to reach $1 million prior to the end of 2017.  Please let us know if you are interested in hearing more about opportunities to join our list of Stewards (gift of $10,000) or learn about different ways to support at all additional levels.  Thank you for helping us ensure PDLT will be able to meet our mission in perpetuity.

Thanks to our supporters, we have now surpassed the 22,000 acre mark in protected lands as of the end of 2015!  Please know that without the generosity of donors, we would be unable to protect these special places around the Pee Dee Region for generations to come.   We look forward to protecting the next 20,000+ with you, too.

All current PDLT Members should have received our semi-annual Spring Events Brochure this week.  Please let us know if you are interested in joining us for any or all of these fun experiences.  You can also access all the photos from the Oyster Roast, past newsletters and information about upcoming events on our website -- www.peedeelandtrust.org.  If you are not receiving the email we send out every other week with news and information about events, please send me your email address and I will add
you to the database.  We would also love for you to ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.