Club Meeting: Mary Charles Howard, GA Hi-Low Trail

Presentation Topic:  The Georgia Hi-Lo Trail, Following the Path Less Traveled.

After earning a bachelor’s in landscape architecture with concentrations in Historic Preservation and Environmental Ethics from the University of Georgia, Mary Charles quickly put her talents to work and found her stride as an entrepreneur. She combined her love of community and small business with a passion for food and culture to launch Athens Food Tours. Many full stomachs and happy customers later, she sold the company and focused on Economic Development with Athens-based W&A.

Her next entrepreneurial move came after four years of being frustrated with a lack of safe cycling and economic opportunities in her hometown of Sandersville and Mary Charles Howard decided to take matters into her own hands. In 2019, she launched the Georgia Hi-Lo Trail initiative. After seeing the success of Athens’ Firefly Trail, she decided to build on the great work of that trail by extending Firefly Trail’s original 39-mile trail south another 200 miles with the Georgia Hi-Lo Trail – through Sandersville and beyond – ending in Savannah. Upon completion, the Georgia Hi-Lo Trail will be the longest paved trail in all of America.

Immediately after launching the Georgia Hi-Lo Trail, she started the Kids Bike League, a program of the Hi-Lo Trail that gets kids ages 2nd-8th grade on a bike in rural communities in middle, east and coastal Georgia. Kids Bike League currently operates monthly rides, summer camp and winter camp in Effingham County, Statesboro, Sandersville, and Sparta.

The Hi-Lo Trail has been receiving a lot of press lately. Mary Charles was interviewed for an Atlanta magazine, she’s been traveling to speak to different groups around the state, there was an article about her in the AJC that was titled “A Georgia Woman’s Audacious Plan” and she had a radio interview on FM 95.5 and the interviewer ended by saying “I wouldn’t bet against Mary Charles.”