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More than $11,000 was pulled from the walls of Johnson Creek Tavern. Where's it going?

Island Packet - 3/3/2020

Mar. 3--The oldest dollar bills in Johnson Creek Tavern are yellowed from decades of being affixed to the walls.

The money in the bar remains on display, per tradition, but the bills customers staple throughout the remaining rooms of the long-standing seafood restaurant on Harbor Island get yanked down every few years for a good cause. Armed with staple removers and pliers, dozens of volunteers spent much of Saturday pulling money from the walls of the business.

The bills were still being counted Monday, but the total is expected to surpass $11,000 to help send military veterans to Washington, D.C., in April to visit war memorials via Honor Flight Savannah. The restaurant's "Operation Pull Down" has donated its bills the past three times -- more than $40,000 total -- to Honor Flight.

For many veterans, the trip is their first to the nation's capital, organizers say.

"I can't tell you how many times I've heard this was the best day of their life," said Craig Bowman, a Lady's Island resident and Honor Flight board member.

The veterans group will leave from Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah on April 24 to travel in motor coaches to Washington, D.C., spend the following day touring memorial sites and make the return drive the third day.

Each veteran's three-day trip costs about $500, meaning Saturday's effort will pay for at least 22 veterans to travel.

Money on the walls and ceilings of the bar at Johnson Creek Tavern preceded the current owners -- two couples who initially bought the property overlooking the marsh to neighboring Hunting Island and beyond as a real estate investment. They began operating the restaurant in 2001 and encouraged customers' tendency to leave money on the walls in other rooms, providing markers for people to leave messages about their hometowns, favorite sports teams, and some words not fit to print.

One man spelled out a marriage proposal in a series of bills and then reserved the table for a later date with his eventual fiancee, Johnson Creek co-owner Coleman White remembered.

The bills were first used as a fundraiser in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. The restaurant raised more than $20,000 for the United Way in Mississippi for storm victims along the Gulf Coast.

As the walls fill, the bills periodically get pulled down for various causes, including Wounded Warriors and Susan G. Komen breast cancer organization. Coleman said another event is planned in October to raise money for Pledge the Pink, an event on Fripp Island, Hunting Island and the Habersham community, which supports various breast cancer-related causes.

Money taken down Saturday was stacked and counted by tellers at South State Bank on Lady's Island and will be later deposited and returned as a check to Honor Flight.

Tourists who left notes on the walls were initially miffed when they came back and found the money gone.

But signs posted throughout the restaurant share where the money has been donated in the past, White said, and those who scrawl messages on George Washington's mug understand they might not see it again.

"People pretty much know when they put their dollar on the wall, it will be there for a while, but not forever," White said. "It hasn't stopped the flow.

"It still surprises me how quickly the walls fill up."

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(c)2020 The Island Packet (Hilton Head, S.C.)

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