Community Lawn and Garden center on Laurens Road in Greenville looks nothing like the governor's office at the Statehouse in Columbia. But that's exactly what it was for an hour Thursday afternoon. Gov. Mark Sanford held one of his "Neighborhood Office Hours" visits there.

A line of people waited patiently to meet him, some to ask for help with problems, some just to let them know how they feel about certain issues.

Jeri Foster, of Spartanburg, came to ask the governor for an endorsement letter. "We're starting a program, and it's going to be a pilot program in Spartanburg, and we're going to be working with children of incarcerated parents," she says. She hopes the endorsement letter will help the state get a share of federal money now going to other states with similar programs.

Some came to ask for help with red tape surrounding medical problems or government benefits.

But some, like Pat Patterson of Simpsonville, just wanted to meet the governor. "I just wanted to offer him my encouragement and support," he says.

The governor's director of constituent services, April Derr, says about one-third of the people who come to these neighborhood office hours visits want help with a problem, and a majority of those do get solved to their satisfaction, she says.

Gov. Sanford started these community meetings when he was in Congress, and they serve two purposes. "Some people have a problem and we can maybe help them with that problem in working their way through bureaucracy," he says. "But a lot of it is direct feedback from a standpoint of what's on people's minds."

So the governor listened for a little over an hour, talking over bags of backyard fertilizer instead of talking over the backyard fence. He says most of the problems people have can't be solved in one day, but now he and his staff know about them, and are working them.