From staff reports
The “Help Save Gullah-Geechee Land Campaign” of the nonprofit Pan-African Family Empowerment & Land Preservation Network, Inc., (PAFEN) was honored with a 10th anniversary proclamation by the Beaufort County Council during its Oct. 27, 2025, meeting in Bluffton.
Beaufort County Councilman Mark Lawson of Bluffton presented the proclamation to St. Helena Island resident Theresa White, Founder and CEO of PAFEN. White, is a former journalist and was the first Savannah District Office Manager for former U.S. Rep. Cynthia A. McKinney, Georgia’s first Black Congresswoman.
PAFEN, currently headquartered on Hilton Head Island, has saved Gullah-Geechee-owned homes, land, and businesses in both South Carolina and Georgia with a total assessed value of almost $25 million. It has also educated S.C. property owners and leaders via a series of Stand4Land Taxpayer Empowerment Workshops since 2017.
Among other notable achievements, PAFEN was able to get the S.C. General Assembly to implement a 1-year extension of the redemption deadlines for all S.C. real property auctioned at county delinquent tax sales statewide in 2019, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Georgia, PAFEN has been saving Geechee-owned property from delinquent tax sales in McIntosh, Glynn, and Chatham counties since 2021. The majority of funds in Georgia have been spent to protect Geechee property in the tiny Hog Hammock community of Sapelo Island, the most endangered Gullah-Geechee enclave in the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, and Savannah.
For more information, visit https://panafricanfamilyempowermentnetwork.org.
