At first guess, I’m sure you thought, “McDonalds, of course!”, but in reality, the largest restaurant chain in South Carolina is not a fast food restaurant at all!

Here’s a hint: Parents will be happy to learn that there are 18 full time staff members organized in quality education teams to address strategic plan components for school food service in South Carolina.

In addition, the staff provides regulatory oversight to the United States Department of Agriculture Child Nutrition Programs and the disbursement of Federal funds to the School Food Authorities (SFA).

if you haven’t figured it out yet, the largest restaurant chain in South Carolina is actually the The Office of School Food Services and Nutrition for the S.C. Dept. of Education.

Potential Youth Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that works with underprivileged youth to instill character and education through sports, has opened in Greenville on the SCTAC campus.

Formally established in 2002, The Potential Youth Foundation is dedicated to the support of disadvantaged youth through academic, character and athletic programs.

The foundation – free for those who qualify as disadvantaged youth and available at low cost for those who don’t – currently provides an after school program for children in grades 4-12, as well as an eight-week summer program.

“We want to play an integral role in our community with the development of youth, grades 4-12 and being located on the SCTAC campus helps us accomplish that mission” –
Greg Blatt, Executive Director
Potential Youth Foundation.

The new system, which is nearing completion, will include two new highly-efficient gas turbine generators capable of producing 11,000 kilowatts (kW) of electricity. These two new co-generation turbines will replace four older, less-efficient turbines, and have the capability to increase electrical output from 14% up to almost 30% of the plant’s current electrical demand.

“Using methane gas to power our plant is one example of our focus on environmentally-friendly production processes.” – President of BMW Manufacturing,
Josef Kerscher.

Additional Facts:

1. To date, over 60% of the plant’s total energy requirements are provided by landfill gas.
2. BMW’s landfill project is the only project that co-generates electricity and hot water for use at an industrial location remote from the landfill.

Jobs in South Carolina’s clean energy economy grew 16 times faster annually than total jobs between 1998 and 2007. Although South Carolina did not attract clean technology venture capital investments in the last three years, the state has experienced significant job growth in the category of Clean Energy.

South Carolina’s Renewable Energy Grants and Loans Program could spur more growth with low-interest loans for building renewable energy generation facilities, including those powered by wind, solar and biomass resources.

BY THE NUMBERS, THE CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY

EXAMPLES OF COMPANIES

6 p.m. tomorrow is the next Greenville Web Solutions Meetup.

The organizer says he’s “been reading blogs centered around news from the West Coast for far too long now – lets see about putting the Upstate on the East Coast’s IT map along with RTP & Atlanta!”

“I’m thinking just plain ol’ IT talk, whether it be OSS, Programming, Security, SEO/SEM, Standards, Web Design, Web Technologies, Webmaster Skills, etc.”

While he envisions the group being mostly about web technologies, he looks forward to whatever others want to bring to the table – as long as it is IT-related.

Apparently he doesn’t want it centered around job searching or networking like 1000 other groups out there already do.