BSH Staff and Board of Directors

Bluffton Self Help is Bluffton’s only source for free food, cloth­ing and short-term finan­cial assis­tance to qual­i­fied Bluffton res­i­dents in need. Our abil­ity to serve is totally depen­dent on help of local indi­vid­u­als and groups who want to serve our neigh­bors in need. With the help and com­mit­ment of many car­ing vol­un­teers and sup­port­ers, BSH served over 22,000 peo­ple in 2009. And for Bluffton, one of the country’s fastest-growing cities accord­ing to USA Today, the needs will cer­tainly con­tinue to increase.

Board of Directors

Ida Mar­tin, Founder

        • Lili Cole­man,
          Exec­u­tive Director
        • Julie Del Guer­cio,
          Assis­tant Director

      • Peter Brom­ley, President
      • John Orth, Vice President
      • Gene Brown, Treasurer
      • Linda Kauf­man, Secretary

      • Tray Hunter
      • Tony Ciervo
      • Walt Hol­lis
      • Chris­tine Loeffler

      • Sandy Graves
      • Court­ney Hampson
      • Cindy Taulbee

Ida Mar­tin, Founder


BSH began in 1987 when Mrs. Ida Mar­tin, return­ing to Bluffton in retire­ment, rec­og­nized a need that was not being met among work­ing fam­i­lies, dis­abled res­i­dents, and senior cit­i­zens in the Bluffton area. Deter­mined to make a dif­fer­ence, Mrs. Mar­tin founded Bluffton self Help, work­ing from her garage, with the mis­sion to help work­ing fam­i­lies and senior cit­i­zens when they suf­fered a finan­cial cri­sis.
In over 20 years of oper­a­tions, Bluffton self Help (BsH) has grown along with the needs of the com­mu­nity, pro­vid­ing free food and cloth­ing, assis­tance with rent and mort­gages, emer­gency util­ity assis­tance, pay­ments towards emer­gency lodg­ing, home repairs, and help with medications. Today, BSH con­tin­ues to serve thou­sands of indi­vid­u­als annu­ally, who oth­er­wise might con­tinue to strug­gle to make ends meet.
In terms our our great­est needs, Mrs. Ida says “First and fore­most, we need more angels… more finan­cial donors who can sup­port BSH! And with the ongo­ing strug­gling econ­omy, we will have even more peo­ple this year, in all walks of life, in need of our ser­vices. We rarely have a full pantry these days because our need is so great…”
Email Ms. Mar­tin here.

Peter Brom­ley, Board President


Fol­low­ing his grad­u­a­tion from Bowl­ing Green State Uni­ver­sity he was drafted and served 4 years as an offi­cer in the U.S. Coast Guard. Upon his dis­charge he joined the Richards Vicks com­pany (now a divi­sion of Proc­tor and Gam­ble) where he held pro­gres­sive jobs in sales and mar­ket­ing man­age­ment. From 1981 until his retire­ment in 2008, he worked for var­i­ous divi­sions of TOTAL, the world’s 4th largest oil com­pany. There he served in sev­eral exec­u­tive man­age­ment posi­tions includ­ing Pres­i­dent and CEO of their world­wide $300 mil­lion agri­chem­i­cal busi­ness. He and his fam­ily lived in France for 4 years and for the past 15 years he com­muted monthly to Europe and trav­eled exten­sively through­out the world.

A mem­ber of both the Euro­pean and Amer­i­can Man­age­ment Asso­ci­a­tions, he has served on the board of UIPP (the Euro­pean Plant Pro­tec­tion Indus­try) and was a senior mem­ber of the Crop Life of Amer­ica Board of Direc­tors for nearly 15 years. He has attended and com­pleted var­i­ous exec­u­tive man­age­ment train­ing courses includ­ing the Har­vard Kennedy School of Gov­ern­ment pro­gram for Deci­sion Mak­ing and man­age­ment excel­lence pro­gram at UVA’s Dar­den busi­ness school. He has had con­sid­er­able media and pub­lic speak­ing expe­ri­ence and joined Bluffton Self Help’s Board of Direc­tors in 2009 where he is cur­rently serv­ing as Board Pres­i­dent. He is mar­ried, has two chil­dren and par­tic­i­pates actively in fit­ness conditioning.

Email Peter here.

Lili Cole­man, Exec­u­tive Director

Lili Cole­man (for­merly Don­ald­son) holds both a bach­e­lor degree in jour­nal­ism from Uni­ver­sity of Michigan/Ann Arbor and a mas­ter degree in advertising/marketing from Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity.  She has worked in the chem­i­cal, med­ical, advertising/public rela­tions, non­profit and retail indus­tries.  She has eight years of pre­vi­ous non profit and fundrais­ing expe­ri­ence with the Asso­ci­a­tion for Retarded Cit­i­zens and the National Kid­ney Foun­da­tion.  She also has12 years of retail mar­ket­ing and spon­sor­ship expe­ri­ence, as part of the man­age­ment team at major regional shop­ping cen­ters in Michi­gan and Geor­gia.  She is the regional direc­tor for Dis­trict
Seven for the Amer­i­can Adver­tis­ing Fed­er­a­tion (AAF) and a mem­ber of the Savan­nah Chap­ter of AAF.  She is also a mem­ber of the National Fundrais­ing Exec­u­tives, Charleston Chap­ter and the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Busi­ness Com­mu­ni­ca­tors and the local IABC club in Atlanta, GA.  She is also a cer­ti­fied cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­fes­sional and com­pleted an exec­u­tive man­age­ment pro­gram at Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan.  She relo­cated to Hilton Head Island from Macon, GA last October.

Julie Del Guer­cio, Assis­tant Director

After sev­eral months as Interim Direc­tor, Julie ramains with the BSH staff  as Assis­tant Direc­tor, where her focus is oper­a­tions and client ser­vices. Over the past sev­eral years, Julie has been involved with local char­i­ties and non-profit organizations.

Julie has rep­re­sented the Coastal Dis­cov­ery Museum of Hilton Head as Mem­ber­ship Coör­di­na­tor and co-chaired The Van for David Jones Fund through the Deep Well Project.  She has also served as a mem­ber of the Board of Direc­tors of both the Hilton Head Humane Asso­ci­a­tion and the Island School Coun­cil for the Arts.

Email Julie here.

 

John Orth, Vice President

John Orth held var­i­ous field sales and mar­ket­ing jobs at Gen­eral Motors in his 31 year career with them. These included national mar­ket­ing direc­tor posi­tions at Pon­tiac and Sat­urn and VP Sales and Mar­ket­ing at Saab. Orth retired in 2008 after seven years as Regional Mar­ket­ing Man­ager for Cadil­lac in the Southeast.

Email John here.

Gene Brown, Treasurer


Gene Brown Bio here.

Email Gene here.

Linda Kauf­man, Secretary

Linda Kauf­man has lived in Moss Creek since 2005. Two of her three sons and their fam­i­lies live in Bluffton as well. Orig­i­nally from Long Island, she moved here from cen­tral Ohio where she had earned her degree at The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity. She was a vol­un­teer coör­di­na­tor for the Red Cross before serv­ing as Bluffton Self Help Board Pres­i­dent from 2008–2009 and has chaired the annual fundraiser — BASH at the Lake since it began 3 years ago.

Email Linda here.

Tray Hunter


Tray Hunter is a Mar­ket­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive with Pal­metto Elec­tric Coöper­a­tive. Prior to Pal­metto, he worked as Com­mu­nity Rela­tions Man­ager with Hargray and as a Senior Dis­trict Exec­u­tive with the Boy Scouts of Amer­ica. He is a grad­u­ate of The Citadel.

Tray has served on var­i­ous Boards in the Low­coun­try to include Greater Beau­fort Cham­ber of Com­merce, Low­coun­try United Way, Coastal Empire Coun­cil and the Low­coun­try Young Pro­fes­sion­als. He was selected for the “40 under 40” Busi­ness Achiever for the Savan­nah Busi­ness Report and the Low­coun­try Young Pro­fes­sional CIVITAS Award. He is an Eagle Scout and grad­u­ate of the Hilton Head/Bluffton Cham­ber Lead­er­ship pro­gram. Tray cur­rently serves as a mem­ber of the Greater Bluffton Busi­ness Coun­cil and the Bluffton Rotary Club.

Tray is mar­ried with two children.

Email Tray here.

Tony Ciervo

Tony Ciervo bio here.

Email Tony here.

Walt Hol­lis

Walt Hol­lis bio here.

Email Walt here.

Chris­tine Loeffler

Chris­tine has cob­bled together a career focused on com­mu­ni­ca­tion con­sult­ing. She taught col­lege alge­bra, man­aged sev­eral health­care busi­nesses, led the mar­ket­ing efforts of a regional archi­tec­tural firm, and was lead con­sul­tant on change man­age­ment at First Union National Bank. Her com­pany, Sin­clair Loef­fler Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (www.sinclairloeffler.com), designs effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion, train­ing and lead­er­ship coach­ing pro­grams for busi­ness clients and non-profits. She is the Senior Part­ner in Lead for Life (www.leadforlife.com), a busi­ness con­sul­tancy that pro­vides service-based lead­er­ship train­ing for non-profits, cities and munic­i­pal governments.

Chris­tine has a BS in Human Ser­vices from UNC Char­lotte and is a Cer­ti­fied Busi­ness Coach from Duke Uni­ver­sity. She is the is for­mer pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Busi­ness Com­mu­ni­ca­tors (Char­lotte Chap­ter) and board mem­ber of the North Car­olina Head Injury Foun­da­tion. She speaks at national con­fer­ences on com­mu­ni­ca­tion and non-profit lead­er­ship, was a vis­it­ing fac­ulty mem­ber of Duke’s Busi­ness Coach­ing pro­gram, and is a self-taught and award-winning graphic designer. She has designed and devel­oped the web­site and com­mu­ni­ca­tions mate­ri­als for BSH. Chris­tine and Bill together have five chil­dren and 11 grandchildren.

Email Chris­tine here.

San­dra Graves

Sandy is a Team Leader and Branch Man­ager for Coastal­States Bank at Sun City.

She grad­u­ated from Phillips Busi­ness Col­lege in Lynch­burg, Vir­ginia in 1982. Shortly there­after she was Office Man­ager as a civil­ian for the Navy and Marine Corps at Vir­ginia Mil­i­tary Insti­tute (VMI) in Lex­ing­ton, Vir­ginia for 11 years.

Sandy has been in the bank­ing indus­try since mov­ing to Bluffton, in 1991. Sandy is actively involved in the com­mu­nity and is a Bluffton Rotar­ian cur­rently serv­ing as Sec­re­tary for the Board. She is cur­rently serv­ing on the Exec­u­tive Board of the His­toric Bluffton Arts and Seafood Fes­ti­val. Sandy Chaired the Beau­fort County School Bond Ref­er­en­dum to build Bluffton High School. She has also served as Pres­i­dent for M. C. Riley Ele­men­tary School Improve­ment Coun­cil, Assis­tant Girl Scout Leader, and Pres­i­dent of both Bluffton Fire Dis­trict and Lex­ing­ton, Vir­ginia Fire Depart­ment Ladies Auxiliary.

Email Sandy here.

Court­ney Hampson

Court­ney Hamp­son is the mar­ket­ing man­ager at Pal­metto Bluff, a posi­tion she has held since she migrated south from New Jer­sey in April of 2005. At Pal­metto Bluff, Court­ney is respon­si­ble for all aspects of inter­nal and exter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the 20,000-acre res­i­den­tial and resort com­mu­nity. She also han­dles com­mu­nity rela­tions and char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions for the property.

Cur­rently Vice Chair of the United Way of the Lowcountry’s Emerg­ing Lead­ers, Court­ney is also an Adjunct Fac­ulty Mem­ber at Tech­ni­cal Col­lege of the Low­coun­try and the Uni­ver­sity of South Car­olina Beau­fort, and a free­lance writer. Her byline appears every other Wednes­day in the Bluffton Today and she con­tributes monthly to CH/CB2 Magazine.

Email Court­ney here.

Cindy Taulbee

Cindee Taulbee

Cindy Taulbee bio here.

Email Cindy here.

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For a press kit or other inquiries, please con­tact:

Lili Cole­man
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
Bluffton Self Help, Inc.
(843) 757‑8000

Bluffton Self Help, Inc.

Mailing Address:
PO Box 2420
Bluffton, SC 29910
NEW Street Address:
 39 Sheridan Park Circle Suite 10
Bluffton, SC 29910
Phone: (843) 757-8000
FAX: (843) 757-6600
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