It seems like summer break just started, but some local organizations are already pitching in to help at-risk students prepare for the upcoming school year.
Arlington-based Offender and Aid Restoration and Verizon Wireless retailer TCC are two of the organizations that are setting up drives for backpacks and other classroom necessities in Arlington.
TCC’s program, School Rocks Backpack Giveaway, first started in 2013. The program has donated 950,000 backpacks stocked with school supplies since its founding. TCC asks that on July 24 from 1 p.m-4 p.m. community members drop off backpacks and supplies at participating stores, including a store at 3141 Lee Highway
Offender Aid and Restoration, which works to improve the lives of the incarcerated population through educational programs, community service opportunities and reentry services into society, is also organizing a backpack drive.
Until August 12, Project Backpack, sponsored by OAR, will collect school supplies for children and deliver them with a note of encouragement from their incarcerated parent.
“It is so crucial to maintain strong family bonds while a parent is incarcerated for both the child and the parent,” said OAR’s executive director. “Incarceration not only affects the person going through the system, but everyone closest to them as well.”
Anyone interested can also donate to the Project Backpack cause online. Community members may also drop off items physically or mail them to OAR’s Arlington office at 400 N. Uhle Street, Suite 704, Arlington, VA 22201.
Police Operation in Ballston — Arlington County Police say they arrested a wanted individual in Ballston Wednesday evening, in front of the DARPA building on N. Randolph Street. Officers used a “diversionary device” — witnesses described it as a flashbang grenade — during the operation, a police spokeswoman told ARLnow. “One suspect was taken into custody without incident,” ACPD spokeswoman Kirby Clark said. Additional details were not immediately available. [Twitter]
‘Perfect Friday Night Date in Rosslyn’ — “A round of miniature golf is one of summer’s pleasures, whether putt-putting past pirate statues at a course by the beach or playing in a regional park closer to home. It works equally well as part of a date night or a group outing with friends. And it’s definitely not the kind of thing you’d expect to find popping up in the plaza outside a Rosslyn office building.” [Washington Post]
Beer Hall Nears Opening in Ballston — The opening of Bronson Bier Hall in Ballston, the successor to A-Town Bar and Grill, is about a month away. Most of the major interior construction appears to have been completed. [Instagram]
Amazon Hosts LGBT Reception — “A special reception [was] hosted by Amazon at a location in the heart of its massive planned expansion was held at Freddie’s Beach [Bar in Crystal City] to greet the area’s LGBT community.” [Falls Church News-Press]
Subsidies for Late Night Commuters — “The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has kicked off an effort to support late-night workers who travel when transit service is not available. Since July 1, qualified workers – such as those in the hospitality or health-care industries – have been eligible to receive a $3 subsidy toward travel on Lyft for trips taken between their home and workplace between midnight and 4 a.m.” [InsideNova]
Arlington Community Foundation Awards Scholarships — “The Arlington Community Foundation awarded new college scholarships totaling more than $540,000 to 72 students who will attend college next year. An additional 105 scholarships totaling $281,000 were renewed for returning college students, for a total of 177 recipients.” [Press Release]
Boxing fans can enjoy a 35-minute BASH training session followed by a tapas-style brunch this Sunday (June 29), from 10 a.m.-12 p.m., at the Hyatt Centric Arlington (1325 Wilson Blvd).
Bloody marys and mimosas are available for participants over the age of 21. Event guests will be automatically entered into a raffle for a two-night stay at the Hyatt Centric Arlington. An additional raffle will offer up a two-night stay at Central Park Hotel in New York City.
The Aga Khan Foundation and Save the Children both work to improve the lives of impoverished people by increasing access to education and healthcare. All of the proceeds will go toward the foundations.
Tickets are $40 and are available for purchase online or at 703-908-4692.
Two Virginia organizations are looking to help as Arlington braces for immigration raids in the wake of President Trump’s deportation threats.
The Falls Church-based Legal Aid Justice Center is collaborating with the Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations to train people on what rights the county’s immigrant community has and how they can help. The legal aid organization will be hosting the free event at the Syphax Education Center (2110 Washington Blvd) from 3-5 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday).
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, the legal director of the Justice Center’s Immigrant Advocacy Program, said the event is aimed at teachers, service providers and “basically anyone who serves the immigrant community who is wondering what to tell people right now.”
Attendance is free but people are asked to RSVP to on Facebook.
The Justice Center will review what to do if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stops someone or knocks on their door, as shared here by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Arlington County Board Chair Christian Dorsey during a recent Board meeting criticized Trump for issuing “a vague threat” on Twitter.
“If this latest escalation proves to be real, rest assured that Arlington does not participate in federal immigration enforcement and will not be assisting in any mass round-up or deportation of families or the separation of yet more children,” Dorsey said. He urged anyone who feared they would be targeted for deportation to visit the county’s website with resources for immigrants and to contact the Legal Aid Justice Center if they had legal questions.
In response to a tweet from President Donald Trump regarding immigration, and in an effort to provide context and comfort for the community, the Arlington County Board issued a statement during Tuesday's Board Meeting. pic.twitter.com/GS6FzjwzLH
Last week, Trump announced that ICE would deport “millions” starting Saturday. Despite the president calling off the threatened raids, ICE agents raided several homes and businesses in D.C. over the weekend and detained at least two parents, according to the Washington City Paper.
After the initial announcement “the level of fear in the immigrant community spiked to early 2017 levels, which is to say, extraordinarily high,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
After Trump took office in 2017, immigrant families in Arlington began withdrawing children from food stamps, stopped filing domestic violence protection orders in court and kept kids home from school out of a fear of deportation, according to Sandoval-Moshenberg. When the Legal Aid Justice Center organized the “Know Your Rights” events two years ago, attendance was up — between 100 and 200 people.
Sandoval-Moshenberg noted it’s too early to tell if families are reacting similarly now but, “our phone is ringing off the hook, that’s for sure.”
R.E.A.D. founder Jennifer Sauter-Price said she was “over the moon” about the grant in a social media message to ARLnow.
“Our hope is the Book Bus will be a bookstore for all families,” she said. “Another component while we sell books is to educate customers about book deserts and the inequities of book ownership and how it affects school readiness.”
Sauter-Price got the idea of a book bus from a popular mobile toy shop she helped run as part of a lending library in Austin, Texas. She now wants to travel around Arlington with books that feature diverse characters and stories about acceptance. In total, she has distributed 1,100 free books to about 250 children in Arlington since starting the nonprofit last year.
“We are proud of the work R.E.A.D. has done to enhance the Arlington, Virginia community,” said Andy Yost, Gannett’s chief marketing officer.
“At Gannett, our mission is to connect and empower our readers to make a difference in the communities they are a part of,” Yost said. “Through A Community Thrives, we are further fueling our mission and purpose.”
A Community Thrives has raised more than $6.5 million since 2017 for projects benefiting communities nationwide.
R.E.A.D. currently distributes free children’s books to gathering places around Arlington, like Mr. Moore’s Barbershop on Lee Highway, where young readers are encouraged to talk about the book they’re reading while they get a haircut.
People also buy books directly from the nonprofit’s website, or sign up for monthly subscription book boxes, which Sauter-Price says help fund the books she gives away for free — a business model she hopes to continue with the bus, too.
Now Sauter-Price is hoping to buy a decommissioned school bus and transform it into a bookmobile.
“The most important thing is to make sure it’s waterproof and temperature controlled for the books,” she said. “Then to create a fun children’s bookstore vibe inside that will be engaging for kids. Then the not-fun stuff: insurance, gas, Wi-Fi, licenses. My hope after all this is we will have funds leftover for more books.”
(Updated at 11:35 a.m.) Amazon is making a $3 million donation for affordable housing and support services in the region, with a focus on Arlington.
The gift is being handled by the Arlington Community Foundation, which announced the commitment this morning.
“The gift will create a fund to support programs that maintain and create housing options for low-income individuals and families,” the foundation said.
In a press release, the foundation notes that Arlington has lost nearly 90 percent of its market rate affordable housing over the past two decades. Many expect real estate prices to continue to rise and price out lower-income individuals and families, particularly with Amazon bringing tens of thousands of mostly high-paying jobs to its new HQ2 in Arlington over the next 10 years or so.
“Amazon will match the donation one-for-one, up to $5 million, through September 30,” the company said. Amazon is also making donations and employee matches in the Seattle area, home to its first headquarters.
More from the Arlington Community Foundation press release, after the jump.
The News Media Alliance and the American Press Institute share office space in Ballston.
The News Media Alliance and the American Press Institute share office space in Ballston.
David Chavern, President & CEO of the News Media Alliance
Jeff Sonderman, deputy executive director and executive vice president of the American Press Institute
The headquarters for the American Press Institute and the News Media Alliance is located at 4401 N. Fairfax Drive.
People are more interested in the news these days. Part of that is due to the political climate, but part of it is that there’s an abundance of news and news-like content online, which often makes it difficult for readers to know whom to trust.
“The political situation we’re in now has actually made people much more consciously aware of journalism, and what good journalism is and what it isn’t,” said David Chavern, president and CEO of the News Media Alliance (NMA), a Ballston-based nonprofit that advocates for the news industry. “Journalism is much more central to people’s consciousness in public conversation than it was certainly three or four years ago, 10 years ago.”
The Trump presidency has certainly accelerated the public’s focus on journalism, according to Chavern, but more people are having a harder time knowing where their news is coming from.
“There’s always been conspiracy theories,” Chavern said. “They were usually delivered to you by a crazy uncle over the dining room table. And that was clearly different from what was on TV and what was in the newspaper and in the driveway. Those are three clearly different sources of information. In the internet blender, all that stuff is delivered exactly the same way and it puts a big burden on readers to pay attention to where things come from. And what stands behind them.”
NMA’s mission, along with its partner organization the American Press Institute (API), is to promote good journalism through advocacy, education and training.
“Journalism plays a central role in a democracy,” said Jeff Sonderman, API’s deputy executive director and executive vice president. “We want people to be informed of what’s happening both in their government and more broadly in their community. We want people, in any given place, to be able to have a shared conversation with each other about what’s happening here. What do we want to happen in this community? How are we making decisions together? And journalism is really the medium that facilitates that, that both creates a platform for it and also shapes it into a responsible platform.”
Before moving to its Ballston headquarters (4401 N. Fairfax Drive) in 2012, API hosted training seminars for journalists at a facility in Reston. As fewer and fewer newsrooms had the money to pay for these seminars, API shifted its business model toward online and in-person training, and research.
“We’re really interested in supporting changes in journalism that make it more innovative and use new technology and storytelling in data and science, but in the service of making those organizations sustainable financially and otherwise, so that they can continue to exist and do the work that’s really are the core of what we’re working on,” Sonderman said.
With accusations of “fake news” running rife through the industry, API has done a lot of research about mistrust of media in order to inform its newsroom training. It’s also partnered with the Trusting News organization to help newsrooms adopt practical, everyday strategies for instilling trust in readers.
“Trust is the foundation of the relationship that any journalist wants to have with an audience,” Sonderman said. “It’s difficult to do all these critical things about serving democracy and informing citizens if there isn’t a foundation of trust to build that on.”
“Newsrooms need to be more transparent about their process. Something as little as adding a sidebar to a story explaining why the news outlet thought it was important to cover the story and how the reporter researched it can go a long way toward establishing a trusting relationship with readers,” Sonderman said.
Volunteers plant flowers near Courthouse Plaza. (Photo courtesy of Mothers Demand Action)
Volunteers plant flowers near Courthouse Plaza. (Photo courtesy of Mothers Demand Action)
Volunteers plant flowers near Courthouse Plaza. (Photo courtesy of Mothers Demand Action)
Volunteers plant flowers near Courthouse Plaza. (Photo courtesy of Mothers Demand Action)
Volunteers plant flowers near Courthouse Plaza. (Photo courtesy of Mothers Demand Action)
Volunteers plant flowers near Courthouse Plaza. (Photo courtesy of Mothers Demand Action)
A local non-profit is dedicating a garden in Courthouse in honor of the victims and survivors of gun violence.
The Arlington chapter of Moms Demand Action (MDA) is dedicating the garden on Friday (June 7) from 7-8:30 p.m. The event will begin with a rally at Courthouse Plaza (2100 Clarendon Blvd) and then proceed to the garden, where a formal dedication will take place.
“We’re planting hope and creating something hopeful,” said Celia Slater, who handles communications for MDA. “We’re planting to honor the people we love who’ve been killed. We plant seeds for lasting change.”
Speaking at the dedication will be Del. Rip Sullivan (D-48th), MDA lead Beth Fine, and Arlington Board Chair Christian Dorsey, who will be reading a proclamation from the Board.
Also speaking will be Carmen Lodato, whose mother was shot and killed in 2014 in her Alexandria home.
“It’s awful what happened in Virginia Beach,” said Slater, referring to last Friday’s shooting spree, in which a gunman killed 12 people at a Virginia Beach municipal building. “Everybody should be able to live and work without being afraid of being shot at your desk.”
Members of the public donated the initial flowers for the garden, which include sunflowers and other pollinator-friendly blossoms. Come fall, MDA will plant more flowers, with the hope of transforming the plot into a butterfly garden, Slater said.
Children, students and other volunteers painted hundreds of rocks, which will be placed around the garden.
“With so many school lockdowns, we wanted to make sure that we can show families and children that there are positive forces at work to end gun violence,” Slater said.
VC Firms Eyeing Arlington, D.C. — “Two venture capital firms that have invested mostly in tech companies in the middle of the country are keeping their eye on Greater Washington in the wake of Amazon.com Inc.’s decision to place its second headquarters in Arlington.” [Washington Business Journal]
Owl Rescued from Middle School — “Last week, [the Animal Welfare League of Arlington] got a call from a local middle school that an owl was trapped in their boiler room. Officers Toussaint and White responded and were able to safely remove the owl.” [Facebook, Twitter]
Five-Vehicle Crash on Route 50 — At least two people were reported injured after a five-vehicle crash on Route 50 yesterday afternoon. [Twitter]
Wild Press Conference Near Rosslyn — “Pro-Trump operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman… hosted a bizarre press conference in the driveway of Burkman’s Arlington, Va. home, while being frequently interrupted by noise from nearby garbage trucks.” [The Daily Beast]
Arlington Org Office Attacked in Kabul — The Kabul, Afghanistan office of Crystal City-based non-governmental organization Counterpart International was attacked yesterday. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the deadly terror attack. [CNN, Counterpart International]
Nearby: Silver Diner Coming to Alexandria — Silver Diner is seeking permission to open a new location at 4610 King Street, in a new development in the City of Alexandria, near Arlington’s Claremont and Fairlington neighborhoods. [Patch]
A new indoor cycling studio with a social mission is opening soon in Rosslyn (Photo courtesy of Good Sweat)
A new indoor cycling studio with a social mission is opening soon in Rosslyn (Photo courtesy of Good Sweat)
Arlington’s newest indoor cycling studio “Good Sweat” is set to open next weekend with $1 class packages and an altruistic mission.
The exercise center will hold a grand opening celebration next Saturday from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at its studio in the Rosslyn’s Colonial Village Shopping Center at 1711 Wilson Blvd.
Between April 15-20, Good Sweat customers can buy an unlimited week pass for $1.
After April 22, drop-in classes will cost $28 and class packages will cost $99.
“At Good Sweat, we are committed to giving you the best sweat of your life, all while improving someone else’s,” founder Alessandra “Ali” Hashemi said in a statement. “Arlington is the perfect location for Good Sweat’s flagship studio. The local population is fitness focused and extremely socially conscious.”
Hashemi previously told ARLnow she expected to open in March after raising $26,000 in donations last fall to build the studio, exceeding her original $25,000 goal.
The company intends to donate a portion of all proceeds for charity.
Employees and clients from the nonprofits featured each month will also get discounts at Good Sweat, reported the Washingtonian. Other proceeds will subsidize low-income customers who want to go for a spin at Good Sweat, Hashemi has said.
Arlington Man Nabbed for Gun at DCA — “The number of firearms caught by Transportation Security Administration officers at checkpoints at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) have increased at an alarming rate this year as TSA officers caught the ninth gun of the year yesterday, April 7.” [TSA]
Trustify Co-Founder Lands Federal Appointment — Once high-flying Arlington startup Trustify, which has shut down amid a flurry of lawsuits and accusations of malfeasance, has generated another headline, this time for its co-founder’s new job. Jennifer Mellon was appointed confidential assistant to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Neil Chatterjee, prompting questions from one energy industry publication. [E&E News]
Fire at Pike Apartment Building — “Units on scene 5500 blk of Columbia Pike for fire in trash compactor in high rise residential building. Fire is out, extinguished by sprinkler system. No extension. No injuries reported.” [Twitter]
Phoenix Bikes Rises — “With a newish executive director and a new space to call home, Phoenix Bikes will have a lot to celebrate at its upcoming ‘Makers’ Ball’ later in the month.” [InsideNova]
