JLC Public Affairs Team Meets with Governor Haley

Last week members of the JLC Public Affairs Team met with Governor Nikki Haley to discuss our new League focus of healthy children and to learn from her what issues she sees facing the children of South Carolina. Stacy Thompson, VP for Community, also joined the group and gave an overview of the League’s history and current work. Governor Haley seemed particularly interested in our collaborations with other community groups such as Palmetto Health Richland Children’s Hospital to organize the Healthy Kids Expo to take action to tackle issues in the community. She was also impressed with the size and dedication of our membership.


Governor Haley shared with us that from her perspective, the two biggest problems for children in South Carolina are the rising epidemic of obesity and literacy. She feels that the entire family needs to be educated on these issues to fix the problems. We told her about our Kids in the Kitchen program teaching about healthy nutrition and the work we have done through Smart Matters to encourage reading and learning for children and parents.

Governor Haley gave us some insight into a new initiative that the Governor’s Office will be launching later this month geared toward improving the quality of life for families in rural communities. Each month a different rural county in the state will be highlighted and provided with much needed resources such as health screenings, access to the DMV services and help to acquire their GEDs. In addition, Haley’s Office will be promoting the positive stories and news from these counties to the rest of the state.

Haley encouraged our members to get involved with this initiative and her staff will provide us with further information. As our time came to an end, the Governor pledged her support to the League and offered to assist with any of our volunteer or advocacy efforts to improve our community and state.

Many thanks to Public Affairs Team members, Katherine Haltiwanger and Jamie Shuster, for making this meeting possible.

By: Emily Brady, Public Affairs Team Chair