DANNY SYLVESTER

Danny Sylvester plays a wide variety of roles within his community, including being the owner of a heating and cooling business, the owner and operator of Renaissance Park, and a Legacy Community advocate. Mr. Sylvester has been running a successful heating and cooling business for around 30 years. His initial interest in the industry humbly started when traveling trade school recruiters visited his hometown. He decided to attend a trade school in Indianapolis, Indiana, but returned home afterwards to start his business in Jackson County. Today, he serves a 100-mile radius, all the way to Washington and Leon Counties. His business has picked up in recent years due to the damage caused by Hurricane Michael and the general age of most of the building’s units. Mr. Sylvester also owns and operates Renaissance Park, a 40-acre wilderness park about 8.5 miles northeast of downtown Marianna, just outside of Two Egg and Greenwood.

The park is filled with artifacts and relics of folk life reminiscent of early rural farm life in Jackson County. The Park hosts Heritage Festivals twice a year in September and December, where African American tradition bearers demonstrate folk life traditions such as pig picking, hog dressing, sausage making and soap making. At the park visitors can even watch the sugar cane, grown on site, be cooked down to a syrup in an 80-gallon, cast-iron kettle. When the festival isn’t happening, the park hosts camping sites and educational retreats. Through this outreach, Danny Sylvester is able to share the history and resilience of these communities.

In this picture Mr. Danny Sylvester at Renaissance Park. To learn more about Renaissance Park , please visit the following website.