CHARLESTON, SC — Katie Stagliano was a third-grade pupil working on her school project in 2008 when she planted a cabbage seed in her Charleston-area backyard. That tiny seed grew into a 40-pound cabbage. She donated it to a local soup kitchen, where it helped feed 275 people. “Then one thing led to another,” she recounted in an interview, and today more than 80 gardens in 30 states are run by young people who grow produce for the hungry people in their communities.Former Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. and Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, director of business development for the Clemson University Restoration Institute, presented Katie Stagliano (center) founder of Katie’s Krops, with a Joseph P. Riley Jr. Vision Award for citizenship.

Stagliano, now 17, is founder and chief growing officer of Katie’s Krops, which offers start-up grants to youths 9 to 16 years of age who want to start their own community gardens. She received a 2016 Joseph P. Riley Jr. Vision Award for citizenship. The award is named for Charleston’s revered and long-serving mayor, who capped a 40-year career as mayor of Charleston Jan. 11. It was presented Jan. 19 at the 16th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Business & Professional Breakfast in Charleston attended by about 600 people.

Katie’s Krops selects about 20 community garden young managers each year for an all-expenses-paid summer camp at the W.P. Rawl & Sons farm in Pelion, SC, where they learn the ins and outs of growing and managing a community garden. In September 2012, Stagliano became the youngest recipient of the Clinton Global Citizen Award for Leadership in Civil Society.  

Also honored at the Jan. 19 Business & Professional breakfast in Charleston were Anita Zucker, chair and chief executive officer of the InterTech Group Inc., and her late husband, Jerry Zucker, both of the Zucker Family Foundation. The Zuckers have generously supported numerous local organizations and institutions, including kitchens that feed low-income residents.

Youth was the theme of the day as Elizabeth Colbert Busch, director of business development for Clemson University Restoration Institute, who chaired the 13-member award selection committee, presented the awards. She appointed mostly millennial generation leaders (generally, 11 to 33 years old) to the selection committee. “We wanted to show Mayor Riley the bench he has left behind; the people who will continue his work,” said Colbert-Busch.

Joseph P. Riley III and W. Bratton Riley, the mayor’s sons, served on the committee. Mayor Riley cofounded the breakfast event in 2000 along with then-YWCA executive director, and is serving his 16th and final year as honorary chairman, part of South Carolina’s largest tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. The sold-out affair was sponsored by the YWCA of Greater Charleston and the City of Charleston.