Leading with Love and Compassion

Written By: Luke Osteen | Issue: May 2023 | Photograph By: Brian O'Shea

As you’re browsing through this issue of The Laurel, take note of all the events that happen at the Village Green in Cashiers.

Somehow, nearly every entity in Southern Jackson County and every local family ends up at the Village Green at some point.

Though she’s too modest to mention it (we had to coax her into being featured in this issue), Ann Self is there with these groups and with these families.

Until her retirement last year, Ann served as executive director of this community touchstone for nine years. Her cajoling and meeting and begging and planning and promising led to this patch of green and splash of wetland into a year-round hive of activity.

“I’m a retired United Methodist minister, and I was serving a part-time appointment. The position opened up and it turned out they were looking for someone with the skills I had — being in church works translates very neatly into nonprofit work.”

It’s doubtful anyone could have predicted how quickly that this admittedly sleepy landmark would be transformed into something vital in the life of the community.

“At the beginning, I was literally handed a milk crate with some file folders, a big binder and a couple of disks and I had a desk in my kitchen,” Ann says. “That milk crate and my kitchen desk became the office of the Village Green.”

“It’s such a pleasure to work with Ann – when she was in her role in Village Green’s development, as an officer at the Jackson County Tourism Development Authority, and as a community leader in many other efforts,” says her friend Stephanie Edwards, the executive director of the Cashiers Area Chamber of Commerce. “Her leadership and professionalism, enhanced by her obvious compassion and sincerity, were always appreciated by her many friends at the Cashiers Area Chamber as well as those across the Plateau.”

“I’ve been in Cashiers for 12 years, and Ann has been a force of nature that entire time,” says Albert Carlton Cashiers Community Librarian Serenity Richards. “A public greenspace, open to all, including a playground, public art, preservation of natural features and habitat, public concerts and events that are free to the community, as well as creating much needed venue space for private community events. All on a whopping staff of one. She never tired of working to improve the Green. Cashiers wouldn’t be the same village we all love without the Green, and that’s all down to Ann’s tremendous love of this community.”

Prior to her retirement, in the midst of all the growth and detours and occasional setbacks, Ann reflected upon her challenges and satisfactions.

“I like to say the Village Green is my sanctuary, and I have the prettiest sanctuary in Cashiers,” she said. “I look very much at what the Village Green does in terms of bringing community together and building relationships as the same as my understanding of church and ministry.”

by Luke Osteen