(Written by Serra Ferguson)

When I moved to Athens in ‘95, it didn’t really feel like a choice but more of a default. I had a free ride at UGA with scholarships and grants, and my highschool sweetheart would be going there, so why not?

Fresh out of college at 22 and ready to take on the world, I instead met the man who would become the father of my child and we decided to stay in Athens–for the moment. Just temporarily, I told myself, until we could figure out our next step as a family. I got an opportunity to open my own boutique, Remnant, selling my work and the handmade pieces of others.

Realizing it was a commitment that tied me down even more, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to fulfill a dream I’d had since college.

But by 27 I was a single mom and unable to keep my business afloat while adequately supporting my child. My friends were moving on to bigger cities and even other countries, dreams I shared but saw no way of making a reality.

Instead, like so many of my artist and musician friends, I spent my nights in service industry jobs, renting a cheap apartment whose location allowed me to get by without a car, and working on my passions when I could. I continued to sell my work at events and shows, while holding down two or more other jobs, and unsure of how to make my art my living.

I knew that I was happiest when I was making things, and being around others who did the same. I never felt more at home than when I was at a craft fair, getting to know other creative people and seeing what they do. But I couldn’t see a way to translate that into my day to day life.

Unbeknownst to me, during this time the seeds of my future were being planted. A friend suggested that since I had so many connections with artists in town, maybe I should just start my own market.

Maybe so, I thought, why not?

What began on a whim–the very first holiday market was put together in a little over two weeks with a group of about 20 artists–turned into my first true sense of connection to the broader community here. As Indie South Fair grew, I came into contact with people I otherwise wouldn’t have known–people that weren’t in my social circles, but who also wanted to make a living doing what they loved.

The feedback was encouraging, with people telling me how well they did at my markets and how much they appreciated my hard work. It felt good, knowing that I could facilitate the dreams of others as I worked toward my own.

As time went on, I met people who weren’t itching to get out to Brooklyn or San Francisco or Portland where many of my friends had gone. People who saw Athens as fertile ground for cultivating some of the more cosmopolitan aspects they sought without sacrificing the slower pace of life we all appreciated.

I began to see that there was an opportunity to help create the town I wanted to be in without uprooting my family or my life, alongside people who truly cared about their community. I started to embrace Athens, not as the college town I never left, but as place that already has the makings of everything I want, and the people willing to put in the work and time to realize their dreams here.

This past year I have seen a culmination in many of the ideas and intentions of the past decade come to life.

My Fall event more than doubled in size, and my Holiday event swelled with almost a third more artists–not just locals, but people from far-away states who are hearing about all the great things Athens has to offer and want to see for themselves. Athens has shown me that it loves what I do, and I love doing it here. Now I am collaborating with some of the other businesses that have sprung up to promote and serve our creative community.

I sense a fresh energy here, one that seeks to maximize the potential while preserving the original charm. I see myself as being able to have an impact and a voice in our community, as someone who creates something that has a ripple effect throughout our town. Many people are moving here not to go to college but to make a life here, recognizing that Athens is worth investing themselves in.

Indeed, I made such an investment myself last December, in buying my first home here. It’s an historic in-town property that has a special place in the Athens music scene and in the hearts of many who have passed through it.

It feels good to know I will have a hand in preserving it. Also this year the man I fell in love with closed the distance between us by re-locating from Atlanta to make his home here as well.

This year, after living here almost 20 years, I can now say I have chosen Athens as the place I want to make my home and make a difference. A small corner of the world that feels like mine, and that I want to share with others.

Serra Ferguson is the founder and organizer of Indie South Fair, a series of markets featuring local artists and craftspeople that pops up around town throughout the year. This year’s December holiday market featured over 100 vendors and created tens of thousands of dollars in holiday spending on local businesses. Check out Indie South’s smaller pop-up shops at Broad 9A in the Chase Street Warehouses the third Sunday of every month, and keep an eye out for their Valentine’s Market February 6 at Creature Comforts.

(Written by Derek Chitwood)

When I was a boy, my family didn’t earn a lot of money. I had two older brothers, and my Dad, or “Deddy” as we call him, got a late start on his career as a rural mail carrier. My Mom rarely worked a job but rather spent every waking hour raising her 3 rambunctious sons. It’s funny how material things don’t matter to a passionate young boy. I was always into something, always creating, always playing, and my childhood was filled with mostly positive thoughts, something that came natural to me.

Perhaps the greatest memories from those years was not of little league baseball, or riding the school bus through the winding back roads of Franklin County, or fall festivals at New Franklin Christian Church; it was the time that I spent working in my Grandpa’s 3 acre peach orchard every summer.

You see, my Grandpa, Virlyn ‘VF’ Chitwood, has a sort of vibe about him, an aura.

He’s had that for as long as I can remember and even to this day as Alzheimer’s has crept in, it’s still there. My brothers and I would wake up early and ride up to the orchard with my mom in one of our old beat-around cars and we’d spend most of our time there playing or watching a small black and white television that was tucked away amongst cobwebs and dry-rotted peach baskets in the back of our roadside stand.

Our earliest chore was picking up rotten peaches that had fallen to the ground and hauling them to a spot on the property as far away from the trees as possible. When we turned 12 or so, we were allowed into the picking crew, an outfit that consisted of Grandpa and a revolving door of great uncles and members of our local church. V.F. was the leader and picking peaches was his cup of tea so to speak. He had an extra pep in his step during harvest season because the entire year culminated during that time.

And while his mind was focused on peaches, he never shied from sharing life stories and nuggets of his infinite wisdom with us. He’d grown up during the Great Depression, wasn’t allowed to play football because football was during cotton picking season, moved to Atlanta at age 18, worked at the Varsity and Rich’s, married my Grandma at the courthouse in Jackson, GA, and raised my dad and uncle for a decade in Smyrna before returning home to Franklin County.

He worked a day shift at a factory in Athens and spent the evenings working in his beloved peach orchard. And up until a year or so ago, you’d be hard pressed to drive down New Franklin Church Road near Canon, GA, and not see him out there, doing what he loved.

Grandpa found his passion and he invited us into it.

Anyone around him could feel it and it was contagious. It made waking up early every hot summer day worthwhile, and it brought us all closer together.

So when I started Peach State Pride in January of 2009, it meant a whole lot more to me than a logo or a clothing brand. It was, and still is, a deep passion for who I am, where I’m from, and what it takes to be a great steward of what I’ve been given. When people think about Peach State Pride, I hope something substantial resonates with them, something deeper than a logo or a favorite hat.

I’m not sure why I was lucky enough to stumble upon my passion a couple years after graduating from college. I’d almost all but fallen into the idea that my life was going to be a grind; a career that I couldn’t wait to retire from. I was working a couple of travelling labor jobs that took me all over the country and put me side by side with some rough folks that gave me a good old fashioned baptism into the real world. I got a steady dose of life lessons in those first few years.

I spent a year or two building playgrounds in what seemed like every small town in South Carolina. Each town we’d travel to, whether it was in the Low Country, Upstate, or Pee Dee region, you’d see the Palm Tree and Crescent Moon.

It was on flags, murals, bumper stickers, and it seemed to be a defining source of pride.

Naturally my first thought was that I wished Georgia had something like that, so during some downtime I sketched out a peach logo of my own and began the dreaming process. I literally never looked back. My dreams were big from day 1 and I’ve never lost sight of its potential.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the growth of Peach State Pride from a logo on a scratch sheet of paper to a multi million dollar operation, is how my business knowledge was even more modest than that scratch sheet of paper. I was the son of mailman, not a businessman; I was a history major, and at that particular time I was a construction worker trying to figure out my life. I wasn’t prepared to run a business.

The first few years were difficult; filled with long days, failed sales trips, foolish moments, naive thoughts, bad hires (and good hires), bad purchases (a screen printer), lack of funds, lack of direction, and just about every learning experience you can face when starting a business. But through it all, the business grew and I was always able to survive the day. And to top it all off, I married well.

My beautiful wife, Kari Beth, is a Georgia Tech grad with a Management Degree and a focus in Marketing. She also worked in the corporate world for a couple years. I’m not real sure what she saw in a construction worker with unidentified life goals, but I’m glad that she did. Not only are we best friends, but she’s also the reason we are where we are today.

Kari Beth has single handedly implemented systems and structure into our business that have allowed me to continue to dream big, network, be creative, and grow Peach State Pride. It has allowed us to open 3 successful retail stores in Northeast Georgia. The most recent, Empire South Athens, is a 4,000 square foot space Downtown on Clayton Street. She brought corporate structure to a small business, allowing us to grow more seamlessly.

Through it all, I’ve been able to work side by side with our employees, and hopefully they feel invited into the dream, just as I felt with Grandpa. I go to work with passion, speak in meetings with passion, and make every decision possible with passion.

Being an entrepreneur is not unlike being a passionate young kid. You just follow your heart and it takes you places. And when you’re zealous for what you do, the embarrassing moments or difficult obstacles can’t stop you from achieving your goal. My goal has always been to stay connected to that old man in the peach orchard no matter where Peach State Pride or Empire South takes us, that my heart will never forget where I’m from and who I represent.

Thank you to My Athens for making this possible as we highlight incredible people and wind down 2015.

(Written by Austin Steele)

In conjunction with our My Athens partnership, Wish Dish is sharing stories from influential people within the Athens community. 

My time in Athens began in the fall of 2013; I was a 19-year-old, leaving home for the first time to travel 100 miles east to attend the University of Georgia as an economics major, and I enjoyed taking photos on my phone. Skip ahead two years, and I’m 21, a photographer majoring in advertising (after switching majors countless times) and serving as the My Athens Social Media and Photography Director. This didn’t just happen—there was plenty of stumbling along the way.

My trip from directionless UGA freshman to where I am now began with Instagram.

What is only an app to some people became crucial to me as I photographed my daily life freshman year. Through Instagram, I developed my eye, shared my story, and pushed myself to discover every amazing thing Athens had to offer. I even met other photographers, who showed me sides of Athens I didn’t know existed.

It may have been a little awkward meeting people through this app, but I’m all for the idea of putting myself in uncomfortable situations to allow myself to grow. An uncomfortable meeting arranged through Instagram is actually how I ended up where I am today; the first time I met the people behind My Athens was through a series of Instagram comments and email exchanges ending with me on a blind date of sorts—wandering through a restaurant I had never been in, trying to meet with a group of people I had never met. But hey, it all worked out. I needed to embrace discomfort.

After contributing to the platform for a few months, I took over as the Social Media and Photography Director. I was eager to help My Athens become more than a loose stream of photos of the city. I was unaware how taking this position would change my year in Athens.

I was no longer just a student of the University of Georgia living in Athens–I was becoming a part of the community.

This position inspired me to get out in the community, see what was going on, and tell the stories Athens had to offer. Such pressure usually has a negative connotation, but this time it kept me on my toes. I couldn’t stay inside all day Netflix-binging out of pure laziness. I needed to attend events, try delicious food, and meet the unique people who make this city great. Otherwise, who am I to help tell Athens’ stories and show its beauty?

This drive to experience all of Athens has taken me places I never thought I would end up. I’ve downed hundreds of cups of coffee all over town, stumbled out of bed at the crack of dawn to catch sunrises from the tops of a parking decks, and nearly fallen through the trestle behind Mama’s Boy. Without this position, I doubt that I would have ever sought out the biscuits at White Tiger that remind me of my grandma’s, attended art shows at GMOA alone, or wandered through just about every building on UGA’s campus to find those perfect study spots far away from the crowds of other students.

The people I’ve met in all these wanderings make it that much better, from making friends with classmates to valuing the relationship with the barista that makes my coffee on a near-daily basis.

I never imagined where these people would end up drawing me to, either, since in the past two years I’ve traveled all over the southeast with the Georgia Rowing Team, road tripped from Athens, GA, to the Grand Canyon with a couple of close friends I met in Athens and flown to New York City to visit a friend, who I of course met here.

Running the My Athens Instagram account is not just about posting pretty photos of Athens; it’s about conveying the narrative of the city over time.

People follow this account to keep up with what is going on in the city and yes, to see beautiful photos of Athens, but some people are here for the nostalgia that these photos inspire for a place they’ve moved away from by now. This idea of creating a window into Athens, which people can look through from wherever they are in the world to keep up with a city that they once called home, is humbling.

It makes you realize that you were not here first, this is not your city, but instead you share it with everyone else. You should treat it with respect–don’t spend four years here and leave trash in your footsteps, because this is just another step in your life before you move on to your next city. People live here and love this town.

My past year in Athens has been transformative. Athens has gone from a city where I attend college at to a place I call home, which will always have a place in my heart. When I left for Thanksgiving break this past November with my family, we drove to Florida, and on the way I saw a My Athens sticker on the back of a car–call me obsessed, but after only a few days, I couldn’t wait to get back to Athens.