Bpease 'Fast Runner' to visit Sugar Creek Garden Center

Soline, a Bpeace "Fast Runner" from Rwanda, will visit Sugar Creek Garden Center April 13-15. Soline has operated a garden center in her home country for 12 years.  Her trip is sponsored by the non-profit organization Bpeace, which was founded in 2002 as a network of business professionals who volunteer their time and share their skills with entrepreneurs in conflict-affected countries.

Soline and other Bpeace ‘Fast Runners’ are remarkable entrepreneurs from conflict-affected countries such as Rwanda, Afghanistan and El Salvador. They share the vision that employment is the bridge to better education, less poverty, improved health, and, ultimately, less violence. Visits to Bpeace affiliates in the United States help Fast Runners grow their businesses, thus creating hundreds more jobs and improving the lives of thousands of families.

The jobs that Fast Runners create have a multiplier effect – those jobs sustain thousands of families, boost local purchasing power, and in turn, strengthen other local businesses. This cycle of employment sets a once troubled community on the path to prosperity and peace.

Sugar Creek owners George and Jan Wallace will discuss a variety of topics with Soline, including: 

*  Landscape Designs, software use, hand drawn, our process for both, tour of city garden in design process (City of Tega Cay)

* Greenhouse production tour and propagation

* Marketing techniques, networking, mailers, coupon mailers, Sugar Dollars, 'sweat-equity' marketing (talking to garden clubs, teaching classes, etc..)

* Website - benefits, marketing, techniques, e-news

*Customer Service

* Landscaping

Sugar Creek Garden Center in Fort Mill, S.C., opened in 2010 and its progress through that first year of operation was featured in Garden Center magazine.