Lowcountry Oyster Festival Raises $125,000 for Local Charities Following Successful 2025 Event

CHARLESTON, S.C., June 12, 2025 – Following the success of its 41st annual Lowcountry Oyster Festival on February 2, the Charleston Restaurant Foundation (CRF) has donated $125,000 to support local charities and education partners. A check presentation ceremony honoring this year’s beneficiaries was held today at Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens. Recipients include Ronald McDonald House, MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, Coastal Conservation Association, Shriners Hospitals for Children, College of Charleston, Academic Magnet High School, Charleston County School of the Arts and the Culinary Institute of Charleston’s Kathy Britzius Memorial Scholarship.

“For more than 40 years, the Lowcountry Oyster Festival has brought together thousands from across the country to celebrate a distinctive part of Charleston’s rich culinary heritage,” said Charleston Restaurant Foundation President, Jonathan Kish. “But at its heart, the festival is a commitment to giving back – supporting the very community that makes the event possible and ensuring its impact extends far beyond one day each year.”

In addition to the check presentation, festival organizers joined representatives from Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens, Lowcountry Land Trust, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Coastal Conservation Association of Charleston and Mount Pleasant Waterworks to expand the commemorative oyster reef behind Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens. Originally established in 2024 on Horlbeck Creek, the reef honors the partnership between the late Willie McRae, longtime owner of Boone Hall, and the late Kathy Britzius, former executive director of the Charleston Restaurant Association, who together helped launch the world-renowned festival more than four decades ago. The reef is part of a broader sustainability initiative to recycle oyster shells in local coastal waters, where they support reef restoration, bolster fisheries, prevent shoreline erosion and help mitigate flooding.

The 42nd annual Lowcountry Oyster Festival is currently scheduled for Feb. 1, 2026. Guests of the world’s largest oyster festival will enjoy over 40,000 pounds of steamed oysters for purchase at market price as well as live music, oyster shucking and eating contests, wine, a selection of domestic and imported beers, specialty cocktails, a children’s area and a food court showcasing a variety of local restaurants. Tickets will be available for purchase beginning in fall 2025.

For more information about the 2026 festival, please visit https://bit.ly/3YlZrTT. 

Charleston Restaurant Foundation 

The Charleston Restaurant Foundation (CRF) mission is to support the charitable deeds of the Lowcountry Hospitality Association, which serves the geographical area of Charleston, South Carolina. Its focus is to advocate for its member restaurants by providing them the resources they need so that their guests can savor and celebrate Lowcountry cuisine. Annual fundraising events enable the CRF to give back to the community that has so generously supported its members. To date, those fundraising efforts have enabled the CRF to donate over one million ($1,000,000) dollars to local charities. 

Photo Credit: Charleston Restaurant Foundation

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