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Beyond the Bull to join annual Helping Hands benefit fundraiser

CENTRAL — In August 1984, an emergency shelter and foster home for abused and neglected children from across the upstate of South Carolina opened its doors.

Helping Hands of Clemson received its first children into the house that was licensed to care for 16 children that year.

Today, the house is licensed to care for 54 children. To date, Helping Hands officials have cared for an estimated 8,000, the majority coming from Anderson, Greenville, Oconee and Pickens counties.

If you have ever driven through the depot district of downtown Central, there, on Main Street, you will see a thrift store also named Helping Hands. The retail outlet, staffed by volunteers and stocked with used merchandise donated by generous local residents, is the source of much of the organization’s funding.

But the fundraising doesn’t stop there. In addition to private donations and store revenue, Helping Hands of Clemson hosts an annual pub crawl, an annual Crawl for the Kids.

On Saturday, March 15, the annual Crawl for the Kids Pub Crawl will begin with check-in at 5 p.m. and will last until approximately 11:30 p.m. that night.

Unlike other pub crawls, crawlers can choose to shuttle with a group or go out on their own to the various participants offering drink and food specialties in and around downtown Clemson. This year, the crawl is expanding to include the newest downtown Central eatery,  Beyond the Bull (BTB), offering free duck chowder and chili to anyone from the Crawl who stops in. In addition, the restaurant will donate $1 to the Helping Hands Building Fund for every entrée sold during that time.  Downtown Central is fast becoming a dining destination, with six successfully operating restaurants all within walking distance of each other, from Mexican to Asian and now BTB, an eat-smart kitchen specializing in wild game.

The price to participate is $25 per person for a crawl T-shirt, which guarantees various specials at each stop along the route. To reserve your T-shirt, you must pre-register by March 4. For more details go to http://www.helpinghandsofclemson.org/events/.