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Bakeshop Owner’s Mom Goes Viral With Touching Post

By ARLnow.com

Linda and Justin Stegall outside of Bakeshop in Clarendon (photo via Facebook)

It’s a tad out-of-the-ordinary for a business owner to let his mom tell personal family stories on the business’ Facebook page. But Bakeshop (1025 N. Fillmore Street) in Clarendon isn’t your ordinary business.

On Monday the quirky bakery posted the first in what it says will be a series of “Humans of Bakeshop” posts — a takeoff on the human interest stories compiled by the popular social media publication Humans of New York. The story was from Linda Stegall, mother of shop owner Justin.

“I married my college sweetheart and then put him through 5 years of post grad school while teaching and getting my own masters degree at The University of Virginia. We had two adorable little boys and then we separated when they were 2 and 3 years old. In the absence of their father, I worked hard to be a good mother and father and taught them and their friends how to play football, baseball, how to fish and ride bicycles. I was the neighborhood “dad” and mother. It was the greatest time of my life. I also had the perfect career to be a single parent – I was an elementary school teacher and just retired a few years ago after 35 years of teaching 2nd and 3rd grade! I loved teaching and feel fortunate to have had a career that I was so passionate about.

Family means so much to me.

I still live in northern Va and so do my sons, Justin and Joshua. I’m so proud of both of them- they have grown to be such amazing, kind individuals! My youngest, Josh, married a short while ago to a wonderful girl and we have become part of her extended families. He recently received his MBA from UVA. He is making his way as a leader in the corporate world. He and my amazing daughter in law, Katie, gave me the greatest gift recently, the birth of my first grandchild.

My older son, Justin, followed his dream, which coincidentally began in my kitchen as a child, and is the owner of a lovely neighborhood bakery. It’s doing very well and I am so thankful. I retired to spend more time with my mom and to help him get started in 2010. I love being here, baking and meeting and talking with our customers and working alongside my son.

I’ve worked hard all my life to be able to keep my sons in their childhood home and to take care of the house and yard. My dear father was an engineer and taught me how to do repairs on the furnace, car and tractor. I became very independent and self-sufficient after my divorce.

Hopefully, this paints a small picture of what I’ve been through and what has shaped me.”

As of this morning, the post had received more than 400 likes.

“The reaction was great,” Stegall told ARLnow.com. “We didn’t anticipate the response with my mom’s feature. That blew her away. As her son, I found it so special because she was able to reflect on how many lives she has touched. It was a very emotional experience for her.”

“My mom is an Arlington legend having taught here for 30 years and now helping in the shop where she gets to see many of her former students come in all grown up,” Stegall noted. “People really seem to like the old-school aspect of a neighborhood bakery run by a son and his mom.”

More “Humans of Bakeshop” posts are in the works — perhaps up to one per week.

“A big thing I have worked hard to build is a sense of community for the bakery,” Stegall said said. “For example, we have people that have met at the bakery and gotten married, couples that now have children and spend their Saturday mornings with us. Grandparents that grew up in the area bring their grandchildren here. It’s very special for us. That’s why we started the Humans of Bakeshop series. We want to share the personal stories of people that help operate the bakery and customers that spend their time with us.”

Columbia Pike Woman Encouraging Neighbors to ‘Buy Nothing’

By Heather Mongilio

buy-nothing-group

Flora Wallace had a typical problem for a newly married woman who just moved to a new home. She had many items that she didn’t need but were still in good shape.

Wallace then heard about the Buy Nothing Project, a gift-giving economy where neighbors give away items for free, from her cousin. She decided to bring the project to her neighborhood on Columbia Pike.

“I like the idea of being able to get in touch with a neighbor and give a new home to an item I didn’t need,” Wallace said.

Wallace contacted the administrators of the national Buy Nothing Project who helped her set up the Buy Nothing Project Columbia Pike Corridor group on Facebook. The idea behind the project is to create hyperlocal groups where neighbors can post items they want to give away or post requests for items people might have — and form tighter-knit communities.

“Time and again, members of our groups find themselves spending more and more time interacting in our groups, finding new ways to give back to the community that has brought humor, entertainment, and yes, free stuff into their lives,” says the project’s website. “The Buy Nothing Project is about setting the scarcity model of our cash economy aside in favor of creatively and collaboratively sharing the abundance around us.”

Each group is hyperlocal for areas with less than 50,000 people, meaning that only people in the specific group’s ZIP code can join. Columbia Pike residents in the 22204 ZIP code can join by requesting to Facebook group. Wallace will then contact them and ask for proof of residence before allowing the person to join, she said.

While the Buy Nothing Project helps people find new homes for their items, the project also allows people to connect with neighbors, something Wallace hopes to achieve, she said.

“The focus of the project is getting neighbors to know each other,” she said.

So far the group is small with eight members, but Wallace said she hopes it will grow as more people hear about it. Her goal is to have about 150 members in the next six months.

She has had requests from people outside of the ZIP code, and while she had to reject them, she said she hopes they start their own groups in their neighborhoods.

Wallace recommends residents of other parts of Arlington contact the national Buy Nothing Project administrators to start a new group. They can help a person start the page and go through all the rules that apply to the project, including how posts should be written, how to approve members, etc.

Wallace said she can see people creating a Buy Nothing Clarendon or Buy Nothing Courthouse, as examples. After all, the project helps people meet each other.

“By re-homing items in your community, you get to know who lives there,” she said.

Wallace posted the first item on the group — a CD tower. While no one has taken her up on the offer, she said she thinks it will happen as more people join the group.

“My goal is to find homes for items I might grow out of in the next years and definitely to meet new people,” Wallace said.

Zuckerberg-Backed Rosslyn Non-Profit Helps Immigrants Realize College Dreams

By Mariah Joyce
1/6

Last week, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, announced a $5 million donation to a non-profit right here in Arlington.

The announcement came via a Facebook post to Zuckerberg’s 32.7 million followers which has reached 153,072 likes and counting.

The organization in question, TheDream.US, is a scholarship fund designed to help undocumented immigrants realize their dreams of going to college in the United States. The brainchild of Don Graham, CEO of Graham Holdings Company and former publisher of the Washington Post, the non-profit has made its home in Graham’s Rosslyn offices for the past two years.

Through his work with other education-based charities in the area, Graham says he learned that there were many such undocumented students in the D.C. metro area, particularly in Northern Virginia.

These students are commonly called DREAMers after the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act that has been proposed several times since 2001 but has yet to pass in Congress. DREAMers are unable to receive federal aid to continue their education. In most states they are also not eligible for in-state tuition, which can make going to college prohibitively expensive.

“Certainly in Arlington County, almost every high school student has classmates who are DREAMers, and they quickly come to understand the unique cruelty of the situation of these students,” Graham told ARLnow.com. “They can be the valedictorian, they can be the president of the class. All the other low-income students in the class get U.S. government assistance in going on to higher education, and these students cannot.”

Graham says his organization was empowered to tackle this issue head-on after President Barack Obama announced Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in 2012. DACA allowed undocumented immigrants who had come to the United States when they were children to obtain a Social Security number, a driver’s license and temporary legal status, renewable after two years.

In the summer of 2013, Graham, program director Gaby Pacheco and Henry Muñoz III gathered people together and proposed the idea of a scholarship program to enable those who had obtained DACA status to go to college. Amanda Bennett and Carlos Gutierrez joined Graham and Muñoz in founding TheDream.US, which officially launched on Feb. 4, 2014.

TheDream.US currently partners with about 60 colleges across the U.S. Pacheco says they look for schools located in areas with high concentrations of undocumented students, where you can get a good education for around $25,000 (the scholarship amount offered by the non-profit). In Virginia, TheDream.US partners with Northern Virginia Community College and George Mason University.

The fund currently has $81 million, including donations in the millions from Graham, Zuckerberg, Bill Ackman and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. TheDream.US also allows donors to specify where they want their money to go: for example, Zuckerberg’s $5 million donation was earmarked for students in the San Francisco Bay Area. Pacheco believes this ability to ask that their money be set aside for their own region attracts donors to the organization.

“People love to be able to help out in their own community,” she said. “Many affluent people have foundations in their names or their family names, so we target them and say, ‘look, we can bring a scholarship program to your area.'”

Graham says that as of now, the organization expects to see at least 3,000 students graduate college, but that he “would like to raise more money and make it at least 5,000, and possibly go from there.”

Another part of the organization’s mission is to tell these students’ stories. TheDream.US is doing this through their stories project, which spotlights the lives of notable DREAM scholars. Interns Julia Leibowitz and Sadhana Singh (a current DREAMer) are working on the project this summer in the Rosslyn office.

“For us, it’s really about leveling the field for these young people to go to college,” said Pacheco. “We’re going to allow our numbers to speak for themselves, and show that we are helping meet the gap for people needed in various fields.”

Students who wish to apply for a scholarship can do so starting on Sept. 14, when the third national scholarship round opens. Those wishing to donate can do so through the organization’s website.

APS Now on Social Media Websites

By ARLnow.com

Arlington Public Schools Facebook page

Arlington Public Schools has joined several popular social media websites in an effort to better communicate with the community at large.

The school system is now on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. From an APS press release:

In an effort to increase communications and strengthen ties with Arlington Public Schools families and the community, APS has developed a social media presence. The Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts will go live on Mon, Jan. 14.

These new communication channels will provide the APS community with more ways to receive information about current events, capital improvements, the budget, boundaries and other initiatives, as well as all the news and events going on throughout APS.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Voter Turnout Just Missed Record — A record number of voters turned out in Arlington for the Nov. 6 election, but the turnout just missed the record for percentage of active voters who cast ballots. In the end, 84.6 percent of active voters in Arlington cast ballots, just shy of the 84.9 percent active voter turnout for the 1992 general election. [Sun Gazette]

County to Hold Recycling Chat Today — Arlington County officials will be holding an online chat about residential recycling today. The “Ask the Expert” chat will be conducted via Facebook from noon to 1:00 p.m. [Facebook]

JBG Installs EV Chargers — Property owner JBG has installed a number of electric vehicle charges at its Arlington properties. The company says charging stations have been installed at the Hilton Crystal City (2399 Jefferson Davis Highway) and at the Rosslyn Gateway buildings (1911/1901 N. Lynn Street). The charging stations, part of the Blink charger network, offer priority parking to electric vehicle owners, according to a press release.

Social Media Week Comes to Rosslyn Tonight

By ARLnow.com

Rosslyn will be playing host to two Social Media Week events tonight.

The week celebrates social media — think: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. — and “its role as a catalyst in driving cultural, economic, political and social change in developed and emerging markets.” This is the first year that the D.C. area formally hosted events for Social Media Week, which now counts 21 cities worldwide as participants.

Rosslyn’s Social Media Week events will take place at Artisphere (1101 Wilson Blvd) starting at 8:00 tonight. First up is is e-Geaux (beta), an interactive theater event that finds comedy and some cautionary tales in social media. e-Geaux — pronounced “ego” — has been profiled on NPR, DCist.com and elsewhere. Tickets to the show, at Artisphere’s Dome Theater, cost $15.

After the e-Geaux performance is Tweet Slam. Starting at 9:30 p.m., in the Artisphere “town hall” area, poetry will meet Twitter in a contest to come up with the most creative Tweet. Per the event description:

Calling all slam poets, haiku masters and creative tweeps! What poetic wisdom can you impart in 140 characters or less? Come perform your lyrical Tweets in a slam judged by local social media stars and you can win $140 and bragging rights.

Among the judges will be poet Holly Bass and NBC4’s Angie Goff. Admission is free. Drinks are discounted to $2 with an e-Geaux ticket stub.

Help A-SPAN Win a New Van

By ARLnow.com

The Arlington Street People’s Assistance Network is asking Arlingtonians to help them win a new van.

A-SPAN is one of 500 finalists in the Toyota 100 Cars for Good contest, which is awarding a new vehicle to 100 charitable organizations over the course of 100 days. Each day, the public can vote for one of five nonprofits via Toyota’s Facebook page.

Today, A-SPAN is up against organizations like a Florida arts center, an Illinois animal shelter, a Connecticut HIV/AID clinic and the large, nationwide service organization City Year.

“We are very excited to participate in this contest and have the chance to win a new van for outreach. We are placing more people into housing than ever before, but the first step for each of these formerly homeless people was an A-SPAN outreach staff person finding and building a connection with them,” A-SPAN Executive Director Kathleen Sibert said in a statement. “A new van will help us with this, please encourage all of your friends to vote too!”

A-SPAN has also released a video (after the jump) explaining how a van would help the organization. Vote for them here.

(more…)

Meet Mikhail Semenko, The Ironic, Fun-Loving (Accused) Spy

By ARLnow.com

Gawker has grabbed a bunch of Facebook photos of Mikhail Semenko, the Arlington travel agent who’s accused of being a secret agent for Russia.

As it turns out, Semenko is a fan of parties, ironic t-shirts and Bill Clinton masks. He has just over 400 Facebook friends, although that number is steadily decreasing as his former friends dissociate themselves from him.

The Wall Street Journal didn’t stop at Facebook. It accessed Semenko’s page on a Russian social networking website.

In 2008 a friend of Semenko said on the site, apparently as a joke, “Hi to our valiant spy deep behind the nasty Americans’ lines. Remember the teachings of Mao: destroy the filthy imperialist economy from within!!”

Photo via Gawker.