Ashantilly again participated in Darien's Annual Fall Festival. The Kelsey press was kept busy printing small broadsides that were distributed to visitors to the tent on Broad street. New Christmas cards, printed at the Ashantilly Press,were available for sale. Noel Gieleghem demonstrated some of the techniques he would be teaching at his Decorating, Naturally! workshop on Nov. 11th. Great turnout!
Graphic arts students from Golden Isles Career Academy & Needwood Middle School visited Ashantilly Center and the Ashantilly Press. Students were given a brief history in the house and an overview of Letterpress and printed in the Print Shop. Many of the students were quite intrigued by this analog version of their field!
Ashantilly house and other buildings on the grounds were very fortunate not 
to sustain damage from Hurricane Irma. Although we lost one large Live Oak, and the water got really close to the Print Shop, we had no buildings damaged!
Lots of contestants, hoards of ice cream-loving participants, cool tunes of Skeeter Truck, free Popcorn and Lemonade, not to mention the great Raffle items, all made the 10th Annual Churn - Off special! Judges chose Ashantilly Press's Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake for the Business/Organization winner and Melanie & Chris Smith 's Cookie Butter as the Individual winner. Alberta Mabry's Mango Royale was voted the People's Choice winner.
Jerushia Graham presented an ambitious schedule for the Bookbinding Intensive, but her students were up to the task! Producing two beautiful books plus a sleeve to store them was incredible! Students noted that Jerushia's calm and patient manner helped them to do more than they thought possible!
Ashantilly Press demo'ed the small Kelsey press at the Old Jail Art Center during MAA's Art Camp. It was great fun!
President Harriet Langford presented Ashantilly Center's 2017 Scholarship to graduating Senior Maya Campbell at the Awards Ceremony on May 18. Maya plans to attend Georgia State University in the Fall. Unbeknowst to us prior to awarding the scholarship, Maya's grandmother had worked at one time for the Haynes family (founder of Ashantilly). A hand-printed certificate was provided by the Ashantilly Press.
We are grateful for the generous donors who made this $1000 scholarship possible.
We are so excited about the work being done on Ashantilly's exterior. The vast improvement is awesome! We are so grateful to Sherwin Williams Company, and their representative, Gilford DeBenedetto, for their generous donation of materials for this project. And a special thanks to Tony Mathews Specialty Painting and Remodeling Services for their outstanding work and helping us to be able to do this! You guys rock!!
A big crowd gathered for Art in the Park during Darien's annual Blessing of the Fleet. Noel Gieleghem was on hand demonstrating the heritage craft of boondoggle. Sara printed over 400 small broadsides which were distributed to visitors to Ashantilly's booth. Donna and Harriet sold lots of T-shirts and books, and Cathy, Paul, David and Dave were on hand to help! Thanks to all for making this a successful outing!
New McIntosh County agent, Geoffrey Duesterbeck, was introduced to local farmers at McIntosh Farm Bureau's meeting held at Ashantilly. Farm Bureau's members also got a tours of the vegetable garden and Print Shop. We're glad to have Geoffrey here to help with all of the farming and gardening problems in the county!
