Byerly Foundation

About Byerly Foundation

A $500,000 grant to the City of Hartsville for the Hartsville Development Project captures how The Byerly Foundation gives: large, place-based awards meant to change community infrastructure. Across its recent grants, the foundation backs education, downtown and facility revitalization, animal welfare construction, child mental-health services, and other local capacity-building projects in Hartsville and Darlington County. The pattern is not broad, small-scale philanthropy; it is selective funding for assets and programs that are intended to last. Two other awards show the same approach. The foundation gave $500,000 to the Hartsville Community Center Building Commission for renovations of the Center Theater building, and $250,000 to the Darlington County Humane Society Inc. for construction of a new animal shelter facility. In education, it supported Butler Academy with a $250,000 grant to establish a charter school in the Hartsville area, followed by operating support in later years. These grants sit alongside support for community transportation, tutoring, scholarship funds, and public-health-related services. The overall picture is of a funder focused on local institutions and capital projects that shape everyday life in the Hartsville area.

What Byerly Foundation Funds

Education is a clear thread in the foundation’s grantmaking. It gave $250,000 to Butler Academy to establish a charter school in the Hartsville area, then followed with $225,000 in 2024 and $200,000 in 2025 for charter school operations and operation funding. It also supported Darlington County School District with $43,750 for the Darlington County Schools Student Internship Program and $16,000 to Junior Achievement of Greater South Carolina for Darlington County eighth graders’ virtual career fair and instruction. The foundation also funds child and family services. It awarded $150,000 to Child and Family Resource Foundation in 2025 and $75,000 in 2024 to support the mental health needs of children in the Hartsville community in partnership with Coker University. In access and basic needs, it gave $80,000 and $12,000 to Carefirst Carolina Foundation Inc. for bus stops and on-demand bus service, and $20,000 to Habitat for Humanity International Inc. for land for Hartsville Hope Project houses.

How Byerly Foundation Gives