10 Years In: What's Next for Taylors TownSquare?
Many of you have been with us along the way, but many of you are new. Taylors TownSquare grew from a ministry of Taylors First Baptist Church focused on meeting our community's needs. We realized that a key part of meeting those needs was providing a context for connecting, so Taylors TownSquare started as an effort to provide that context. In the early years, we stayed “neutral.” We worked to create space for conversations in our monthly meetings but stayed out of things.
As time passed, we started to play a more active role. As efforts like the development of the Taylors Mill progressed, we advocated to ensure those developments could continue, and we even brought the Taylors Farmers Market effort in-house and ran those markets and events from 2016 to 2018. We worked on other projects like the Taylors Community Plan and the Main Street Development District with Greenville County and tried to make Taylors a better place overall. When COVID shut down the world in 2020, that put an end to our monthly meetings. They had served a purpose for the 8 years we hosted them, but the loss of momentum around them was challenging to come back from.
As the world came back to life after COVID, we focused on our Business Association efforts, worked to bring nonprofit leaders and regular community members together, and stepped up our efforts to preserve the history of the Chick Springs site. I’m proud of the work our board has done over the past few years to make Taylors a place where people can belong, but as we’ve reached this critical 10-year mark, I want to offer a bit of a distinction about the work we are trying to do.
From the get-go, we didn’t envision Taylors TownSquare as something to belong to. We are not a club; we are not exclusive. But we want Taylors to be a place where people can belong and feel ownership. What I think is missing in that original statement is that there is not just one Taylor community. Hundreds if not thousands of individual communities, groups, clubs, societies, and regular gatherings of people call Taylors home.
Moving into 2025, I want us to be more precise than ever that our goal is to help facilitate connections:
Connecting the people looking to belong to the many different communities in the Taylors area
Connecting the different communities, businesses, and other institutions in Taylors to one another
Connecting everyone to the the history and key resources that make Taylors distinct.
I’m excited to share more about this with you in the coming weeks and months, but for now, at the end of 2025, I would be derelict in my duties if I didn’t make one final appeal for the necessary resources to help us carry out that mission. Specifically, we are continuing to raise funds for our Chick Springs project. I’ve had some great conversations lately about some pending gifts that I’m excited to share as they come to fruition, but for now, I want to thank the following individuals for giving since our last email:
J David Wilder
Deb Regar
Peggy Baker
Between one-time and recurring gifts, we will receive about $1000 towards that $5000 goal over the next year. We are making real progress there, but we continue to need your support.
Support the Chick Springs Fund
Learn More About Chick Springs.
I’m excited about what 2025 has in store and look forward to our continued work to build connections in the Taylors community over the next ten years and beyond.
I wish you a blessed Christmas season and a Happy New Year.
