Author: Jo DeVoe

Top 30 Arlington Stories of 2020: #6-10

By Jo DeVoe
1/5

The countdown to 2021 with ARLnow’s top stories of 2020 continues today with Nos. 6-10.

The following were among our most-read articles of the year. Nos. 1-5 will be revealed tomorrow.

10. JUST IN: Distance Learning to Start School Year ‘Very Probable,’ APS Says (May 22 | 40,495 views)

In May, interim Superintendent Cintia Johnson braced parents for the possibility of distance learning, a decision that would come over the summer. Although Arlington Public Schools eyed a hybrid model, the system ultimately decided on a fully remote model, with plans to return high-needs students over time.

9. BREAKING: Man’s Death in Ballston Ruled a Homicide (Jan. 21 | 42,268 views)

A 24-year-old man dead was found dead in his apartment, which reportedly smelled strongly of bleach. His death — which police said was a result of “trauma to the upper body” — was declared a homicide. It was Arlington’s first homicide of the year. Police have not provided any recent updates about the case; at last check no arrests have been made.

8. Police: Man Threw Dogs from Apartment Balcony (April 28 | 45,534 views)

A 26-year-old man was arrested without bond for tossing two dogs — one of which was his — to their deaths from his fifth-story apartment at the Meridian apartment building at 1401 N. Taft Street. The suspect, Zachary Hanson, entered an Alford plea earlier this month and is set to be sentenced in February.

7. JUST IN: Arlington Opening Drive-Through Coronavirus Testing Site (Mar. 17 | 46,482 views)

In mid-March, Arlington County and Virginia Hospital Center partnered to set up a drive-through coronavirus testing site in a county-owned property across from Washington-Liberty High School. At the time, Arlington had 13 cases, the highest of any Virginia locality.

6. JUST IN: Northern Virginia to Enter ‘Phase 2’ Reopening on Friday (June 9 | 51,034 views)

Readers eagerly awaited the news that came in early June: Gov. Ralph Northam would be reopening restaurant dining rooms, indoor gyms, and some entertainment and recreation spaces, on June 12. Since then, Virginia has reinstated some restrictions as cases climb and surpass the peaks seen this spring.

Freddie’s Beach Bar Gets Support from Barstool Sports COVID-19 Relief Fund

By Jo DeVoe
1/4

Barstool Sports’ COVID-19 relief fund is helping keep long-time Crystal City hangout Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant afloat.

The LGBTQ-friendly bar at 555 23rd Street S., known for its Sunday brunches and drag queen shows, is one of nearly 40 businesses so far to receive relief from the jocular online media company. The fund has raised more than $9 million from about 78,000 supporters since Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy officially launched it on Dec. 17.

“Dave, you are a godsend,” co-owner Rich Lutz told Portnoy in a FaceTime call today (Tuesday). “This is really, really special to see your face in my kitchen right now.”

Portnoy appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show last week to talk about The Barstool Fund, which is how Lutz says he learned about the program. Staff “scrambled” to put together a video telling the bar’s story, he told Barstool in an email.

Since opening in March 2001, Freddie’s continues to be Northern Virginia’s only gay bar, co-owner Freddie Lutz told the Barstool Fund in his funding pitch. The community gathering spot is known as a safe space for gay military personnel and also attracts families for post-church Sunday brunch.

“I don’t know of any bar that is more diverse and welcoming than Freddie’s,” he said.

The brothers keep the restaurant open every holiday to ensure everyone has “a family meal,” and they host a yearly toy drive.

So far, the brothers have managed to keep the lights on and its 25 employees on payroll. At one point, Amazon purchased 1,753 meals from the restaurant, which were donated to Virginia Hospital Center. Rather than try to fill the entire order himself, Freddie spread it out to a dozen nearby restaurants — an act that “breathed life, energy, and activity into the independent restaurants that make up the core of 23rd Street.”

Still, Freddie’s was recently on the brink of closure.

“Like so many others, Freddie’s is struggling and on the verge of shutting down,” Freddie told Barstool.

During his call with Rich, Portnoy praised the bar and restaurant’s story.

“It was a no-brainer,” he said. “We saw the video and we knew instantly that we wanted to help.”

Rich could not thank the Barstool Sports founder and media personality enough.

“With all the terrible things going on in the world right now, having a breath of fresh air like you is just absolutely wonderful,” he said. “I only hope that when everything opens, you will come visit us.”

Barstool Sports did not disclose the amount of money Freddie’s would be getting, and the Lutzes were not immediately available to comment.

Writer and Barstool Sports show host Pat McAuliffe praised Portnoy’s pick in a blog post about Freddie’s.

“I could go on and on about how important bars like Freddie’s are to the LGBTQ community, but I won’t,” he said. “Instead I’m going to give you THIS LINK to donate to help more businesses like Freddie’s across the country.”

The Barstool Fund started with $500,000 of the media company’s funds and has since raised nearly 20 times that amount through donations and merchandise sales.

Businesses qualify if owners are continuing to pay their staff despite struggling to stay open. Portnoy pledged recurring relief for the businesses that are selected, so that rather than delaying an inevitable closure, the businesses have a chance at surviving post-pandemic.

“We’ll do it through the life of this thing,” Portnoy said on Carlson’s show.

Rosslyn-Based Online University Donates $50K to Help Local Businesses

By Jo DeVoe

Longtime Arlington residents who founded a Rosslyn-based online university are donating $50,000 to help local small businesses.

In 1998, Yanping Chen and J. Davidson Frame established the University of Management and Technology, a fully online school enrolling national and international students, located at 1901 Fort Myer Drive. Their $50,000 donation comes from the Chen Frame Foundation, which they started to support educational causes across the world.

But now, they are thinking closer to home.

“COVID-19 brought to mind that we’re not focused enough on our own backyard,” Frame said.

Arlington Economic Development will use the money to help pay for new initiatives, such as educational programming and online services, to help small businesses through the pandemic.

Together with a second round of Paycheck Protection Program funding, AED is expecting about $250,000 in new funding for its pandemic-focused programs, AED Director Telly Tucker said. The department will release more information on the new efforts the money will be funding in the next few weeks, he said.

Arlington County has about 6,000 enterprises that employ fewer than 50 people, which is AED’s definition of a small business, Tucker said.

Pre-pandemic, about three staff members from AED handled outreach to these small businesses. When businesses were forced to shut down or change their operations, the three-person staff was swamped with questions on everything from how to apply for federal assistance programs to how to set up temporary outdoor seating areas to how to keep employees safe.

“It was all hands on deck: We were working together to do what we could to support businesses,” Tucker said. “The overall takeaway for me was that there was no playbook for us to go by on how to navigate during a pandemic.”

But existing business owners were not the only ones with questions. Many who had lost their job or were furloughed saw the pandemic and their new-found extra time as an opportunity to pursue their goals of owning a business, and needed help getting started, he said.

“I ran the entrepreneurship program at George Washington University for several years,” Frame said. “All the time, people would come off the street and describe some new, really weird idea. They would pick my brain. I understand some of the challenges they face — they have lots of questions.”

After listening to business owners, AED came up with a list of efforts that could help, including retaining a few experts who could answer questions “on everything from finances to business-legal services,” Tucker said.

With the influx of cash, AED is also looking to launch an e-commerce platform for small-scale retail stores in the County, in addition to spending more on marketing campaigns to encourage people to shop local.

The County Board heard the news about the donation during its recessed meeting on Dec. 15. It is the first donation of its kind since the Board authorized County Manager Mark Schwartz this year to accept donations of $50,000 or less.

“I wanted to say a hearty thank you,” Schwartz said of the donation. “I hope that when the pandemic is over, I can meet both these [people] in person and give them the commendation that they deserve.”

Schwartz will ask the Board in January to appropriate the money.

Photo courtesy University of Management and Technology

Top 30 Arlington Stories of 2020: #11-15

By Jo DeVoe
1/5

The countdown to 2021 with this year’s most-read ARLnow stories continues today. Falling just outside the top 10 were stories about a banner, a burglary, a bear, and an early coronavirus case in Arlington.

15. Yorktown Principal Apologizes for Banner Seen as Racist (May 21 | 37,228 views) 

A banner with a collage made from Yorktown High School senior portraits used students of color as the black outline of the school’s logo, sparking criticisms that led to the banner’s removal. The principal apologized and Arlington Public Schools attributed the design to the printing company’s software.

14. Police: Store Employee Charged After Shooting Would-Be Thief (March 29 | 37,388 views)

An employee of Arlington Smoke Shop in Green Valley was charged after shooting and seriously wounding one of three suspects who broke into the store early in the morning. Owner Jowan Zuber twice appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to decry the charges. According to Zuber’s GoFundMe campaign, the employee was granted a partial release until his upcoming trial.

13. Neighborhood Abuzz Over Bear Sighting in East Falls Church (May 27 | 37,455 views)

A bear was spotted near Bishop O’Connell High School, and later closer to I-66, generating tons of chatter on social media. Although the Animal Welfare League of Arlington animal control unit responded, it did not locate the yearling male.

12. JUST IN: Coronavirus Patient Worked in Crystal City Office (March 9 | 38,897 views)

In the early days of the virus, when news outlets tracked individual cases, ARLnow reported exclusively that someone who worked in two Crystal City office buildings, owned by JBG Smith, tested positive for COVID-19.

11. BREAKING: N. Glebe Road Blocked By Serious Crash (April 22 | 39,515 views)

A crash, involving a vehicle that careened down an embankment, resulted in three injuries and a large rescue response, blocking N. Glebe Road between Walker Chapel and Chain Bridge. The teen driver, who walked away from the crash, was later charged with driving under the age of 21 after illegally consuming alcohol. The two passengers were seriously injured.

Our top stories countdown will continue tomorrow.

Yorktown Student Pursuing Pilot’s License Accepted to Naval Academy

By Jo DeVoe
1/2

Nilah Williamson, the Yorktown High School senior who was recently featured on Good Morning America for pursuing a pilot’s license before a driver’s license, will be attending the U.S. Naval Academy next fall.

Williamson said she wants to major in chemistry, a field that she is passionate about. After four years in labs, however, she plans to go to flight school, returning to the cockpit and trading in her goggles for a pilot’s uniform.

The teen said she hopes the pilot’s license that she is pursuing will give her a leg up in flight school.

“You compete for a slot at flight school and you compete for an aircraft,” she said. “You have to be at the top of your class.” 

After passing her written test this September, Williamson started flight practice. She needs at least 40 hours of flight time, culminating in a cross-country flight, to earn her license.

“I wanted to use this time to actually do something and achieve a goal I have for myself,” said Williamson, who moved to Arlington with her family two summers ago.

After enrolling in Arlington Public Schools, she took aviation as an elective at the Arlington Career Center, which she credits with helping her get on-track toward her license. This spring, she plans to use Yorktown’s three-week senior experience — when students can pursue internships and career opportunities — to finish the bulk of her needed hours at the Navy Annapolis Flight Center.

Williamson said learning from home has helped her juggle practicing flying and driving — she still has yet to get her driver’s license — as well as school and her weekend job.

“I enjoy virtual learning so much,” she said. “I don’t really think I would’ve been this successful this school year without it being this way.”

She said this year has also given her time to reflect on her future.

“The pandemic made me realize I wanted to serve my country even more,” she said. “With all the events that happened I worked hard to see the good despite all the bad happening, that made me see that this country was worth fighting for.”

She said she is paying closer attention to current events in other countries, and feels more inspired to join the Marine Corps, whose mission is “to help people who can’t help themselves.”

Ultimately, Williamson said she wants to be a pilot in the Marine Corps, which blends her love for flying with the admiration she has long held for the women of the Marines.

“Seeing female Marines growing up, they were my super heroes — my Wonder Woman and Supergirl,” she said. “That’s what I’ve been striving for. That’s why I think I would strive there.”

Williamson has many family members who served or still serve in the military. Her father, Col. Ahmed Williamson, is an active-duty Marine, and she has cousins who were pilots in the Air Force and the Marines.

“Those values are embedded into who I am,” she said. 

Top 30 Arlington Stories of 2020: #16-20

By Jo DeVoe
1/4

ARLnow is continuing our countdown to New Year’s Eve, with the most-read Arlington articles of 2020.

Readers used ARLnow’s coverage to find marches in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, restaurants offering takeout and delivery during the shutdown, and other local news and information. Arlington also remembered one of its own, Colton Poythress, who died in August.

20. Wakefield Graduate and Former Varsity Quarterback Dies at 20 (Aug. 17 | 34,364 views)

This summer, Wakefield High School 2018 grad Colton Poythress died at age 20. Poythress helped clinch Wakefield’s first district championship in 40 years, and helped end the varsity baseball team’s 20-season losing streak in 2017.

19. List: Arlington Restaurants That Are Offering Delivery or Takeout (March 23 | 34,450 views)

After Gov. Ralph Northam ordered restaurants to close for dine-in customers, ARLnow published a list of 150 restaurants in Arlington that switched to pickup and delivery models. The list included restaurants with plans to give back to the community.

18. Petition Asks Arlington Schools to Ditch Microsoft Teams and Use Zoom Instead (July 27 | 35,930 views)

Arlington Public Schools teachers petitioned the school system to switch to Zoom, following the news that APS was planning to start the 2020 school year virtually. Despite their complaints of technical issues with Microsoft Teams, the school system stuck with the software.

17. County Workers Remove Black Lives Matter Chalk Art on Juneteenth (June 19 | 37,150 views)

ARLnow broke the story that the County sent Black employees to power wash a second-grade girl’s Black Lives Matter chalk art, after a resident complained about “graffiti.” This happened on Juneteenth — the day the last African Americans were freed from slavery. The county apologized and ARLnow obtained a memo from County Manager Mark Schwartz.

16. Protest Marches Planned in Arlington Through Sunday (June 4 | 36,033 views)

After news spread of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, residents and organizations planned marches against racism and in support of racial reform. People marched from Courthouse to Clarendon, through Green Valley and all the way to the White House.

Arlington Startups Seize Unexpected Opportunities For Growth in 2020

By Jo DeVoe

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring Shirlington Gateway. The new 2800 Shirlington recently delivered a brand-new lobby and upgraded fitness center, and is adding spec suites with bright open plans and modern finishes. Experience a prime location and enjoy being steps from Shirlington Village.

2020 has been a big year for Arlington-based startups, both in spite of and because of the pandemic.

Arlington was predicted to fare better than other tech hubs because many of its startups focus on emerging technology in science and engineering, collectively known as “tough tech,” as well as the recession-resistant fields of cybersecurity and government contracting.

That prediction came true for local venture builder FedTech, which built and accelerated more than 50 “tough tech” startups, and partnered with government agencies such as the Department of Defense and NASA, a FedTech spokeswoman said.

It also developed a virtual summit on defense technology for the U.S. Army, attracting more than 1,500 viewers, and hosted a startup accelerator for the National Security Innovation Network, she said.

Meanwhile, Ballston-based GroupSense marketed its cybersecurity software to local and state governments trying to protect their elections from security threats this year.

“While these things are difficult to quantitatively measure, our constituents were excited about the results of our solution through the election,” GroupSense co-founder and CEO Kurtis Minder said. “Some of our customers have now contracted us to assist in the same fashion for the vaccine rollout.”

The software detected fake accounts and bots and classified actors that showed intentions to disrupt the democratic process. It also worked with social media, hosting and domain registration companies to take down posts with misinformation, he said.

“[Misinformation] can be as complicated as the state-sponsored actions that we saw in 2016, or as simple as someone tweeting that a polling station is closed when it is not,” Minder said.

The pandemic also created opportunities for non-“tough tech” startups to launch, snag millions in funding, bring on clients and acquire or be acquired by other companies.

CareerGig, which provides freelancers with benefits and vets them for companies, launched this summer, catching the wave of new workers interested in fully remote freelance opportunities.

Ballston-based GoTab nabbed $6 million because more restaurants needed its software to provide customers with a contactless dining experience.

Without opportunities to film in person, companies have turned to stock footage from Courthouse-based Storyblocks. Responding to a renewed interest in racial justice this year, it launched footage of diverse people doing everyday things.

Rosslyn-based Phone2Action gained new clients this year as record numbers of cell-phone users advocated for pandemic relief and social justice reform and campaigned for their preferred candidates. It also acquired two companies — GovPredict in November and KnowWho in December.

As individual startups grew, Arlington as a whole continued to perform well in national rankings.

The County was deemed the third-best place to work for women in tech, according to a study from the website SmartAsset, which measured the gender pay gap and number of jobs filled by women.

This year, 31 Arlington-based companies made Inc. Magazine’s annual list of America’s 5,000 fastest-growing private companies, including Courthouse startup DivvyCloud.

The company, ranked number 471 with 970% growth, was acquired earlier this year by cybersecurity company Rapid7.

Looking towards 2021, there’s optimism around continued momentum for the Arlington and D.C. area tech scene and the local economy, as the pandemic abates and the population gets vaccinated.

During a recent DCA Live event, one commercial real estate professional predicted continued tech growth as Amazon continues to hire and expand its footprint in Crystal City and Pentagon City.

“Amazon HQ2 and Virginia Tech’s campus in National Landing [are] going to further our position as a national tech hub in 2021,” they said.

Arlingtonians Find New Ways to Bring Each Other Holiday Hope and Cheer

By Jo DeVoe
1/9

(Updated at 6 p.m.) This year, Arlingtonians spread Christmas cheer in new ways to bring hope to people virtually or from a distance.

Choir directors at Arlington Public Schools and Bishop O’Connell High School spent hundreds of hours stitching together student videos to create virtual Christmas concerts. A troop of Brownie Scouts virtually judged a gingerbread contest for folks at a local retirement home. And Santa is making special stops in Arlington in his pickup truck, visiting with children from a distance.

Bishop O’Connell choir director Kyra Stahr burned the midnight candle to publish videos to replace the Christmas concert, which is normally the most well-attended performance, she said.

“I feel like I got more creative in how to make that excitement and cheer possible,” she said, adding that she and her students donned Christmas sweaters and watched all the performances on Zoom.

“It worked out better than I could’ve hoped for,” DJO choir student and junior Tommy Green said. “It was a nice way to exit the year.”

Fellow junior Melanie Greig said “it was almost like we were actually singing together in a concert.”

Meanwhile, Glebe Elementary student and Brownie Scout Leah Meder virtually judged a gingerbread decorating contest at the Sunrise Senior Living facility near the school, on N. Glebe Road, along with other members of Troop 60095. From 11 participants, the young judges awarded the most festive, most creative and most delicious-looking houses, and also created a special holiday greeting for the residents.

“I still felt the spark of holiday spirit when we did this online,” said Meder, who is eight years old. “Since [the residents] are living away from people they know, and can only see them a couple times a year, they can probably have more holiday spirit.”

The festivity creativity in Arlington extends to visits by the jolly one himself.

This afternoon (Wednesday), Santa is parading his sleigh — a converted pickup truck — through Arlington neighborhoods from Foxcroft Heights to Columbia Forest, the final route after two mobile Santa visits through Lyon Park and Ashton Heights.

“It’s a tough year for everybody,” said Lyon Park resident Paul Showalter, who is playing the role of Santa. “It’s really fun to see the faces of the little kids as they see Santa drive up in his sleigh.”

This morning (Wednesday), Showalter said he made a special delivery to a boy named Charlie, who had asked Santa for boxes, thread and tape for Christmas. Neighbors and Glebe Appliance donated the boxes, and Charlie will use the supplies to make a British fleet ship.

Also spreading joy is the Yorktown High School choir, which sent the musical videos it produced to faculty, friends and family, reaching an even greater audience this year.

“These videos are my Christmas gifts,” said Jocelyn Mullins, the Yorktown choir director, who directed renditions of “Holiday Road” and “The Sleigh.”

“That’s how it’s keeping my holidays alive,” she said.

(more…)

Extra Coronavirus Precautions Draw New Customers to Moore’s Barber Shop

By Jo DeVoe
1/6

For decades, Moore’s Barber Shop in Arlington has been known as a place where men go for friendships as much as good haircuts.

“The haircut is about a relationship, especially for men,” said James Moore, Jr., the second generation of Moore men to run the business at 4807 Lee Highway.

Community and conversations have drawn people in since James Moore, Sr. opened it in 1960 as Arlington’s first integrated barbershop. Its reputation as a community-serving local business has persisted. Last year, the younger Moore let a nonprofit distribute children’s books there.

While the coronavirus has stifled the sense of communion, his shop is now known for a different reason: COVID-19 accommodations.

Through word of mouth and social media, customers are coming in from Maryland and Washington, D.C. to check out his virus-resistant operations, he said.

“I had a barber shop from Delaware that called and asked me what my procedures and policies were, and who I was ordering supplies from,” he said. “They heard I’m doing it the way you’re supposed to do it.”

Once a hub for friendly debates while Moore moderates — in the event that tempers flare — Moore’s Barber Shop now only holds four people at a time: two barbers and two customers.

Everyone is masked, and the barbers are gloved. Like many businesses, Moore checks his customers’ temperatures, but he goes one step further and checks oxygen saturation levels.

Low oxygen levels can be an early indicator for COVID-19, he said, and Moore has turned away a few people with low levels and counseled them to go to the hospital.

“If you’re 94 or less, you’ve got a serious problem,” he said. “It’s documented that people say they feel great, but they have low oxygen saturation, and then [their body] crashes and they’re on a ventilator.”

Moore also accommodates customers who need extra precautions to feel safe. A select few feel more comfortable with just him in the room, so he opens at 5 or 6 a.m. to give them haircuts.

He uses a plastic-covered chair and a plastic cape, which are easier to clean, he said.

“The real extreme customers bring in their own clippers and cape,” he said. “Between those things, [business is] coming back strong.”

Moore attributes his near-medical-grade approach to his 32 years as an Arlington County firefighter, which gave him the knowledge and background needed to keep people safe.

(more…)

Locals Call for Better Access to Roaches Run, Upgrades to Virginia Highlands Park

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

Some residents in and around Crystal City want to open up the Roaches Run Waterfowl Sanctuary to more walking and hiking — with help from JBG Smith.

The developer owns property around Roaches Run and is interested in converting parts of its private land into a public connection accessible from the surrounding neighborhood.

This partnership is one way that the Arlington Ridge, Aurora Highlands and Crystal City civic associations propose adding open space to their neighborhoods. A second solution is to redesign and upgrade Virginia Highlands Park for more uses than sports.

The two ideas are part of a report published last week from the three associations, which have banded together to form Livability 22202. The report also recommends ways to plan new parks in Crystal City and enhance local biodiversity.

“COVID-19 has changed everyone’s thinking about open spaces,” Livability 22202 President Carol Fuller said. “The traditional parks of the past do not serve the purposes of our new world. We need to have open space, parks and trails for people to go out for casual use outdoors.”

The group is scheduled to present its recommendations to the Parks and Recreation Commission in February, she said.

Compared to other parts of the county, Pentagon City and Crystal City have fewer trails and open parks, Fuller said.

“If we did not have Long Bridge [Park] — which is fairly new — and if we didn’t have Virginia Highlands Park, we would have no trails and very little open space,” she said. (Crystal City is also served by the Mt. Vernon Trail, which connects to the neighborhood near the intersection of Crystal Drive and 18th Street S.)

Livability 22202 is proposing a loop trail and connecting trails into and out of Roaches Run. The County too is interested in turning the area into publicly-accessible natural space as the neighborhood experiences a wave of redevelopment in the wake of Amazon’s HQ2 decision — but officials indicated this spring that it could take 5-10 years to implement.

JBG Smith is willing to make use of its land to advance the broader open space discussion happening in National Landing — the collective term for Crystal City, Pentagon City and Potomac Yard — Andrew VanHorn, Executive Vice President, JBG Smith said in a statement.

“JBG Smith is supportive of plans that would make Roaches Run more accessible to the community and allow more people to enjoy this important natural asset,” he said.

VanHorn added that JBG Smith welcomes “the opportunity to work with the community, the County Board, and the National Park Service to help make this vision a reality.”

Meanwhile, the report authors envision Virginia Highlands Park as an urban park with a blend of recreational and casual uses.

“One of the problems with Virginia Highlands is it’s primarily for recreation,” such as tennis or softball, she said. “It needs an upgrade badly.”

At 18 acres, it is one of Arlington’s largest parks, but suffers from underused and wasted space, at least according to the authors.

The Aurora Highlands Civic Association has long pushed for changes to the park, and this upcoming fiscal year the County was slated to start developing a master plan for it.

But that plan is now on hold, Fuller said. So, in the meantime, Livability 22202 is proposing upgrades that include a gathering space, a sledding site, better lighting, permanent community gardens and a dog run — similar to the dog park proposed by a separate local group.

Money is perhaps the biggest missing ingredient for making changes to Roaches Run and Virginia Highlands Park, Fuller said.

“COVID-19 has not only shown us great need for open space, but it also destroyed the budget to give it to us,” Fuller said.

Earlier, the group published another report calling for more diverse housing options in the zip code.

More Local Families Seeking Food Assistance During the Pandemic

By Jo DeVoe
Volunteers distributing food are separated by plexiglass from those picking up food (Staff Photo by Jay Westcott)
1/7

As coronavirus cases rise in Arlington County, the number of residents in need of fresh, free food for their families is also increasing.

Executive Director and CEO Charles Meng said the Arlington Food Assistance Center is seeing record-high numbers of visitors each week and month.   

“Between October and November, we saw a 9.4% increase, serving 3,440 families at some point during the month,” Meng said in an email. “(We) responded to 11,255 visits for food during the month, with many families having to visit multiple weeks during the month.”

This morning (Monday), families lined up at AFAC to receive a Christmas special — a whole frozen chicken — as well as fresh veggies, desserts, milk and eggs. Volunteers split time de-stalking Brussels sprouts and briskly moving families through the line. 

AFAC has seen people coming more frequently for food during the pandemic, likely because personal budgets that could pay for part of a family’s food needs are now slimmer or non-existent, according to Meng. He added that there has also been an uptick in people coming to AFAC for the first time.

“Many of our families are service workers at hotels, restaurants and airports — the hardest hit during the pandemic,” Meng said. “We are seeing the families who would normally access our services come more often and the new families are more regularly coming for needed food.”

The number of clients served by AFAC last peaked in August, with the organization serving 3,364 over the course of the month. When the pandemic started, the number of families being referred to AFAC jumped by 45%, Meng told MSNBC earlier this month. 

The demand for food at AFAC has attracted both national and international media attention, with a BBC reporter visiting the organization’s distribution center near Shirlington last week.

The rise in demand locally tracks with trends seen nationwide.

An Associated Press analysis of Feeding America data from 181 food banks in its network found the organization has distributed nearly 57 percent more food in the third quarter of the year, compared with the same period in 2019. 

Food and financial donations are enough to keep up with demand, but as numbers continue to increase, Meng told ARLnow more help will be needed. 

“We have sufficient supplies to address our needs for the foreseeable future,” he said. “Financial donations have also been good, but with increasing numbers we need all (the money) that people can spare.”

The annual Boy Scout food drive, which usually brings in 50,000 pounds, was cancelled, but several scout groups still came through with smaller-scale drives, bringing in 36,000 pounds, he said. 

Donations from grocery stores are about level with last year, and individual donations have been “very strong,” he said. 

Nationwide, food banks are seeing fewer volunteers during the pandemic, NPR reports. In some cases, the usual group of volunteers includes older people, who are staying home due to protect themselves from the coronavirus.

AFAC also runs on the work of volunteers, who Meng commended for making sure the food bank handles the increase in visits despite the danger posed by the pandemic.

“Distributing food is one of the things we do well,” he told ARLnow. “We have a dedicated cadre of volunteers who have stepped up to help — they are the real heroes of AFAC.” 

View More Stories