A Letter From Bennettsville
“I am a wife, a business owner, an entrepreneur, an auntie, all the things, but at my core I am a nurturer.”
I try to take people from where they are and work with them mentally, physically, and emotionally to get to where they want to be, while still being empathetic to everything they have going on. When it is a mental transformation, you must dig deep. And I like to see myself as someone who can help people do that digging.
People perceive me as someone who has it all together, but I do not. As I help others work on themselves, I am also continuing to work on me. I see myself as a leader, but a leader who can also be a follower when the situation calls for it.
I am a transformation coach. I help people transform mentally, physically, and financially. And what that means to me is impact. I get the opportunity to help people change their lives, and help them see what their value really is. That matters to me because those are things I struggled with myself. On the outside it did not look that way, but on the inside I did. And because of that, I can relate to people differently as I have been there.
I was always small growing up, never gained weight, could eat whatever and never work out. Then I got married and almost overnight reached nearly 200 pounds. So, I went through the transition too. Many may have seen me before that and after, but they did not see the in between. That is the part that connects me to the people I serve. You cannot tell someone how to walk a road you have never walked yourself.
Marlboro County has taught me resilience and grit. It teaches you how to get through the hard times and how to stay strong during the good ones. This community has its lows, and those lows can pull people under if they stay in them too long. But those lows are also your lessons. I would not trade that shaping for anything.
There is good stuff here in Marlboro County, it is just overshadowed. We have community building activities, local business support, educated people, and history that most people never even hear about. There are things happening in this county worth talking about, worth sharing. The problem is when something negative happens, it gets shared 50,000 times. But when someone has an amazing time at a local festival or a food truck event, nobody posts it. We must do better about celebrating what is ours.
Marlboro County gave me my roots and my relationships. My best friends are from here. I remember water fights at the park, having a village no matter where I went, always someone in the community making sure we were where we were supposed to be. That village gave me discipline and taught me gratitude. And now that I am back, I want to pour back in. I want to give the community what it once gave me.
SERNETTA QUICK | BENNETTSVILLE
“I don’t want to only be remembered by an introduction, but more so by my actions. When I leave this earth, I want people to say, this man had passion about himself, not in a selfish way, but about his health, his mental space, and his ability to impact the lives of others.”
Growing up in the Lester community of Marlboro County, everybody took care of everybody. I attended McColl Elementary School, McColl Middle School, and played football in McColl, but during the summer I played baseball and soccer in Bennettsville. So, I knew adults in both places, and all of them instilled the same things in me: hard work, dedication, commitment, and respect. If I did something I was not supposed to do, an adult would correct me on the spot, or they would tell my parents, and my parents would thank them for it.
I can still remember the days getting off the school bus, heading to a friend's house, his grandma cooking biscuits on the stove, and us playing basketball or football from sunup to sundown. There was no violence, and we knew not to misbehave because it came with consequences. As kids, playing cops and robbers, getting our shoes dirty, playing on unpaved courts, we cherished those little moments. That tight-knit community experience is something I will carry for the rest of my life.
When I left Marlboro County for Orangeburg in 1998, I was successful there because I brought those values with me. When I came back in 2020, things were a little different here in Marlboro County. Some of that village had faded. People had gotten into their own silos. But I still believe in what this place can be. Every county has issues, but when you have adapted to the county and it has become a part of you, you know somebody somewhere in that county will always have your back.
Twelve years ago, I found myself going down the road of an unhealthy lifestyle, and I decided to change. That decision was the beginning of my impact work. When my best friend reached out asking what I was doing to lose weight and I coached him through it, and he started getting results, I realized this was bigger than me. It began with him and expanded to the community. My wife and I were in Orangeburg at the time, changing lives there, and we were coming home on the weekends noticing there were no healthy options to choose from. When COVID hit, we knew it was time to pivot. We had changed Orangeburg, but our hometown still needed help. So, we came back home.
This decision is how The County Nutrition was born here in Bennettsville six years ago. My wife and I started this brick-and-mortar business to provide healthier, nutritional options for our Marlboro County community. What I do today is not a job, it’s my lifestyle. I’ve opened my life for my community to be a part of it, giving people the opportunity to have healthier options, which in turn will change their lives the way mine changed.
CARL LESTER QUICK JR. | BENNETTSVILLE / LESTER COMMUNITY