FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS 3-3-2022

March 3 - 9, 2022

Falls Church, Virginia • w w w . fc n p . c o m • Free

Founded 1991 • V o l . X X X II No. 3

The City of Falls Church’s Independent, Locally-Owned Newspaper of Record, Serving N. Virginia

MHS Girls Hoops Chase State Title

Standing With Ukraine

First round game at home this Friday

by Becki Creed

Special To The News-Press

This Friday at 7 p.m. the Meridian High School Varsity Girls Basketball team opens its bid for the state championship with a Class 3 State Finals opening round game. If they win this Friday, they will play another home game Monday night.

Last Friday, the Mustang team clinched the Region 3B championship, beating Brentsville District 67-22 before a sellout crowd at the Meridian gym.

The team was led by leading scorer Junior Elizabeth Creed (25 points), Junior Peyton Jones (14 points), and Senior Zoraida Icabalceta (12 points).

Icabalceta reached the 1,000 point milestone in her career as a Mustang.

Following up on last year’s historic undefeated season (District, Region, and State Champions), the Meridian High School Varsity Girls Basketball

Continued on Page 3

COMMENTARIES ON PUTIN’S invasion of Ukraine in the News-Press this week include,New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s “We Have Never Been Here Before,” and the News-Press’ Nicholas Benton’s “A Time of Clarity in the Fog of Life.” .

(Courtesy Photo)

Scarlett Williams, F.C.’s Event Planner Extraordinaire

by Amanda Snead

Falls Church News-Press

Falls Church native Scarlett Williams graduated from George Mason University with a B.S. in Tourism and Event Management and decided to bring her skills

back to the city that she was raised in and loves dearly where she now works as the Special Events Program Supervisor and Preschool Director for the Falls Church Recreation and Parks Department.

“Even though the City con-

tinues to grow, there’s still a small town feel to it,” said Williams. “I’ve always loved the idea of giving back to the community I grew up in. I love seeing familiar faces I grew up with, back home for the Memorial Day parade, continu-

ing the tradition with their own families of running the fun run, attending the Memorial Day Ceremony, eating a chicken on a stick and funnel cake for lunch and watching the parade.”

Continued on Page 4

Inside This Week Local Churches Affirming Queer Individuals

In the second of a two part series about local chuches celebrating queer people.

In thus week’s edition, local rector Burl Salmon is profiled about his experience as a gay rector at Falls Church Episcopal.

See Story, Page 9

Index

See Pages 11-16

Editorial................................................ 6 Letters.................................................. 6 Comment..........................................5,7 Crime Report....................................... 8 Camp Guide...............................11- 16 News & Notes.................................... 17 Calendar......................................18,19 Classified Ads.................................... 20 Critter Corner..................................... 22 Business News.................................. 23

PAGE 2 | MARCH 3 - 9, 2022

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NEWS BRIEFS City of Falls Church No Longer Requiring Masks Around Town The City of Falls Church announced new guidance for the public yesterday. The new policy is based on the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) new metrics, effective yesterday: “The City of Falls Church will no longer require masks for the public or employees in City government facilities, including City Hall, the Community Center, and the Mary Riley Styles Public Library. Masks and social distancing are welcome for anyone who chooses to do so.”

The following is also within CDC guidance and City policy: 1. If you are at high risk for severe illness, talk to your healthcare provider about whether you need to wear a mask and take other precautions; 2. Stay up to date with Covid-19 vaccines; 3. Get tested if you have symptoms; 4. People with symptoms and/or a positive test should stay home; 5. People with exposure to someone with Covid-19 should wear a mask; 6. People may choose to mask and social distance at any time; 7. Masks may still be required in healthcare, congregant settings, on public transportation, and in private businesses that choose to continue the requirement; 8. Stay healthy by practicing good hygiene like washing hands and covering a cough or sneeze with your elbow.

This past Friday, the CDC changed their guidance on indoor masking. Based on these new metrics, the impact of Covid-19 in the City of Falls Church is “medium,” and the impact in the neighboring jurisdictions is considered “low.”

The new guidelines assess impact of Covid19 on a community through three metrics: 1.

New Covid-19 cases in past 7-days per 100,000 population, 2. New Covid-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 population (7-day total), and percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by Covid-19 patients (7-day average).

Amazon Announces Support for Pro-Ukrainian Efforts Amazon announced this week that it is working with non-government organizations to offer immediate support to the people of Ukraine. In a statement, it said, “Like many of you around the world, we’re watching what’s happening in Ukraine with horror, concern, and heavy hearts. While we have no direct operations in Ukraine, we have employees and partners who are from or have a deep connection to the country.”

The statement added, “It’s difficult for any company without a local presence to provide direct support in a war zone, so we’re donating $5 million to organizations that are providing critical support on the ground, including

UNICEF, UNHCR, World Food Program, Red Cross, Polska Akcja Humanitarna, and Save the Children.

“We’re also matching up to $5 million in Amazon employee donations to those organizations.

“For customers who want to help, we’re adding donation buttons to the homepages of our websites in the U.S., UK, Poland, and Germany, and we will waive our fees for payment processing.

“The recovery from the war will take many years, and we’ll continue working with NGOs, our employees, and our partners to support the relief efforts and those affected.”

Local Newspaper Support Bill Dies in Richmond A local journalism support bill introduced in the Virginia State Legislature this session by State Del. Alfonso Lopez has died. HB 1217 would have provided up to $5 million annually in income tax credits to news organizations that employ local journalists and up to $10 million annually in income tax credits to businesses that advertise with these outlets.

The Lopez bill died by failing to pass out of a finance subcommittee meeting, with six Republicans voting against and three Democrats voting for. Lopez says he will continue pushing the measure in future sessions until he can get it passed.

The bill would encourage ad revenue in local papers, which pays the salaries of local journalists, according to Lopez. It’s also good for democracy, he said, as areas without local coverage tend to have more government and small business corruption and see lower local election turnout.

Lopez, whose district covers the Seven Corners/Cullmore District adjacent the City of Falls Church, modeled his bill on the federal Local Journalism Sustainability Act (LJSA), included in President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act. It came from the Rebuild Local News coalition, coordinated

by Steve Waldman, the founder of Report for America, a nonprofit that places journalists in local newsrooms.

While new media forms — including online-only and nonprofit outlets — have risen from the ashes of defunct papers, they’re not ubiquitous enough to counteract the decline triggered by ad revenue losses and exacerbated by hedge fund acquisitions, according to Waldman.

A bright spot for newspapers from this year’s legislative session in Richmond: they still benefit exclusively from state legal notice laws that require ads in a print newspaper of general circulation.

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

MARCH 3 - 9, 2022 | PAGE 3

Mustangs Girls Hoops to Advance in States Championships

Continued from Page 1

team (currently 22-1) is chasing after another Class 3 State Championship.

The Mustangs’ stifling defense has earned them victories over much larger local schools in non-district play, including West Springfield, Fairfax, Falls Church, and WashingtonLiberty. In December, the girls beat Spotswood 43-30, the same team that they beat last year to win the State title. And most recently, in mid February, they beat Class 6 power Alexandria City 63-54.

After going undefeated during district play (9-0), the Mustangs have won both the Northwestern District Championship and the Region 3B Championship again.

In the Region final last Friday night, Meridian beat Brentsville District 67-22 in front of its largest (and most boisterous) home crowd of the season. Junior Elizabeth Creed led all scorers with 25 points.

Junior Peyton Jones added 14 points, Senior Zoraida Icabalceta with 12 points, Senior Bella

Paradiso with 6 points, Seniors Megan Tremblay and Sydney Longer with 4 points each, and Senior Rianna Arsenault with 2 points. With her 12 points, Icabalceta surpassed the 1,000 point milestone in her career as a Mustang, which was recognized during the game with a stoppage of play and presentation of a commemorative game ball in honor of her achievement.

Icabalceta has committed to play basketball for Ithaca College next year.

As Region 3B Champion, the Mustangs will host the State Quarter-Final on Friday March 4th at 7:00 in the Mustang Gym. They will take on the No. 2 seed from Region 3A (the loser of the New Kent - Lakeland game which was scheduled to be played on Tuesday, March 1).

If the Mustangs win the State Quarter-Final, they will host the State Semi-Final on Monday March 7. The Class 3 State Championship game is scheduled for Thursday March 10 at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Siegel Center, in Richmond.

VARSITY GIRLS BASKETBALL Team with Head Coach Chris Carrico, and Assistant Coaches Svetlana Pankratova, Miranda Wingo, and Leah Partridge. (P����: K������� T�������).

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PAGE 4 | MARCH 3 - 9, 2022

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Falls Church Special Events Back in Full Swing This Year Continued from Page 1

Williams got her start with the Recreation and Parks department in 2006 keeping book and clock for men’s league basketball games while she pursued her degree at Mason.

Upon graduating, Williams took a job with Falls Church City Public Schools working at Mount Daniel Elementary School, the elementary school she attended in her youth.

Williams worked for FCCPS for nine years before receiving a phone call that the previous Special Events Program Supervisor was leaving. The new job would combine this position with the Preschool Director position, combining her passion for working with kids and planning events. She applied and began the job in December of 2018.

“I plan our Annual Easter Egg Hunt, Memorial Day Parade and Festival, Independence Day Celebration, Falls Church Festival, Sunset Cinemas, Halloween Carnival and Holiday Gift and Craft Show,”

said Williams when asked about what her position involves. “I’m also the liaison between the City and organizing groups for the MLK March, Tinner Hill Music Festival, Concerts in the Park, Veteran’s Day Ceremony and Watch Night as well as ensure our preschool program is compliant with the Virginia Department of Education. I’ve had the opportunity to work with a variety of city departments, vendors, sponsors and more over the past 4 years.”

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Williams did not let it stop her from doing her job and bringing fun events to residents of the city. From a virtual fun run to taking Mr. and Mrs. Easter Bunny out and about and more she ensured fun could still be had.

However, 2022 may be the year that things return to “normal” and events make their comeback and residents can expect to experience events the same way they have in years past.

“I’m excited to announce that I’ve begun planning for a

full year of our annual events,” explained Williams. “We all know this can change in a blink of an eye, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m kicking off the year with a new pop up in the park celebrating National Walk Through a Park Day on March 30. Community members will be able to walk through some of our very own parks and learn about the history and natural wildlife we have right in our own backyards. We’ll celebrate Easter with our Easter Egg Hunt on April 16 and our 40th Annual Memorial Day Parade and Festival on May 30.

Our Falls Church Festival is set for September 17, Sunset Cinemas for September 23, 30 and October 7, Halloween Carnival for October 29 and our Holiday Gift and Craft Show for December 3 and 4.”

One of Williams’ favorite events is expected to make a full come back this year— the Memorial Day events!

“I always looked forward to Memorial Day as a child but now as the planner, I feel each event brings its own

level of excitement,” she said.

“Watching events from start to finish is one of my most favorite things, no matter the size of the event whether it brings in 300 or 15,000 plus attendees. I enjoy getting to know the sponsors and vendors and working with the Police Department, Public Works Department, Office of Emergency Management and Communications Department, all who help make the events successful.”

There are also plenty of ways to get involved with these events even if you don’t work for the city.

“We offer a variety of ways for locals to partake in events, whether you would like to be a participant or attendee,” said Williams. “Interested in participating? We have our 2nd Annual Mayors’ Fitness Challenge between the City of Falls Church, Town of Vienna and City of Fairfax beginning March 19. Help us retain the title as the Most Fit Community!

Registration is now open online for City of Falls Church residents and employees. Have a business

or organization you want to promote? We offer artist/crafter, merchant and civic booth opportunities at our Memorial Day Parade and Festival that brings in 15,000 plus attendees, our Falls Church Festival that brings in 12,000 attendees and our Holiday Gift and Craft Show that bring in 2,000 attendees.

Not a business within the City of Falls Church but still interested in participating and hanging out marketing material? We offer sponsorship levels for all of our events! We’re also now accepting Grand Marshal nominations for our 40th Annual Memorial Day Parade on Monday, May 30. If you’d like to nominate someone, submit a letter with the nominees name and why they deserve to be nominated to sawilliams@fallschurchva.gov by 5 p.m. on March 7.”

For more information on upcoming events, as well as vendor and sponsorship opportunities, visit www.fallschurchva. gov/SpecialEvents. Nominations for Grand Marshal can be sent to Williams at sawilliams@ fallschurchva.gov.

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

COMMENTARY

MARCH 3 - 9, 2022 | PAGE 5

We Have Never Been Here Before

by Thomas L. Friedman New York Times

The seven most dangerous words in journalism are: “The world will never be the same.” In over four decades of reporting, I have rarely dared use that phrase.

But I’m going there now in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Our world is not going to be the same again because this war has no historical parallel. It is a raw, 18th-century-style land grab by a superpower — but in a 21stcentury globalized world. This is the first war that will be covered on TikTok by super-empowered individuals armed only with smartphones, so acts of brutality will be documented and broadcast worldwide without any editors or filters.

On the first day of the war, we saw invading Russian tank units unexpectedly being exposed by Google maps, because Google wanted to alert drivers that the Russian armor was causing traffic jams.

You have never seen this play before.

Yes, the Russian attempt to seize Ukraine is a throwback to earlier centuries — before the democracy revolutions in America and France — when a European monarch or Russian czar could simply decide that he wanted more territory, that the time was ripe to grab it, and so he did. And everyone in the region knew he would devour as much as he could and there was no global community to stop him.

In acting this way today, though, Putin is not only aiming to unilaterally rewrite the rules of the international system that have been in place since World War II — that no nation can just devour the nation next door — he is also out to alter that balance of power that he feels was imposed on Russia after the Cold War. That balance — or imbalance in Putin’s view — was the humiliating equivalent of the Versailles Treaty’s impositions on Germany after World War I. In Russia’s case, it meant Moscow having to swallow NATO’s expansion not only to include the old Eastern European countries that had been part of the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, like Poland, but even, in principle, states that were part of the Soviet Union itself, like Ukraine.

I see many people citing Robert Kagan’s fine book “The Jungle

Grows Back” as a kind of shorthand for the return of this nasty and brutish style of geopolitics that Putin’s invasion manifests. But that picture is incomplete. Because this is not 1945 or 1989. We may be back in the jungle — but today the jungle is wired. It is wired together more intimately than ever before by telecommunications; satellites; trade; the internet; road, rail and air networks; financial markets; and supply chains. So while the drama of war is playing out within the borders of Ukraine, the risks and repercussions of Putin’s invasion are being felt across the globe — even in China, which has good cause to worry about its friend in the Kremlin.

Welcome to World War Wired — the first war in a totally interconnected world. This will be the Cossacks meet the World Wide Web. Like I said, you haven’t been here before.

“It’s been less than 24 hours since Russia invaded Ukraine, yet we already have more information about what’s going on there than we would have in a week during the Iraq War,” Daniel Johnson, who served as an infantry officer and journalist with the U.S. Army in Iraq, wrote in Slate on Thursday afternoon. “What is coming out of Ukraine is simply impossible to produce on such a scale without citizens and soldiers throughout the country having easy access to cellphones, the internet and, by extension, social media apps. A large-scale modern war will be livestreamed, minute by minute, battle by battle, death by death, to the world. What is occurring is already horrific, based on the information released just on the first day.”

Russia is in the process of forcibly taking over a free country with a population of 44 million people, which is a little less than one-third the size of Russia’s population. And the majority of these Ukrainians have been struggling to be part of the democratic, freemarket West for 30 years and have already forged myriad trade, cultural and internet ties to European Union companies, institutions and media.

We know that Putin has vastly improved Russia’s armed forces, adding everything from hypersonic missile capabilities to advanced

Continued on Page 7

of prominent locals with names like Our Man in Arlington madeOneclear:lesson The Ball, Marcy, Mackay and Lyon.

By Charlie Clark

The long-anticipated expansion of grave space at Arlington National Cemetery is proceeding apace. Our county’s transportation officials last month updated the impact on our streets at a symposium for the Columbia Pike Partnership.

By chance, the construction is beginning as I received word of a little-known effort a century earlier to expand grounds to inter the nation’s fallen war heroes.

The cemetery’s “southern expansion” is being planned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Highway Administration using land from the old Navy Annex. In a deal approved by the county board in January 2021, Arlington reluctantly sold the Army five acres. In return, engineers planned a realignment of traffic patterns at Columbia Pike east of S. Oak St. to Washington Blvd., along with the S. Joyce St. intersection with the Pike, plus a new section of S. Nash St. The project will add a multi-use trail, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, and a new tunnel between the cemetery and a maintenance compound. The county gets Columbia Pike improvements that, planning documents say, “will help transform it into south Arlington’s `Main Street’ and improve travel for those walking, biking, riding transit and driving in this gateway.” This section of the Pike will become “a four-lane roadway with a sidewalk…improved landscaping, enhanced lighting and undergrounding of utilities.”

U.S. Army and the needs of the nation’s veterans constitute a higher federal priority than the needs of our suburban residents.

Flash back to Arlington Cemetery during World War I. Its superintendent from 1918-1941 was Col. Robert Dye, a SpanishAmerican War veteran who lived at Arlington House before his own quarters were built. Oddly, Dye, who would go on to be a prominent developer in Arlington and Fairfax, joined with other wealthy investors 400 miles away in Huntington, W.Va., to create a new, civilian cemetery in our hometown.

On Oct. 17, 1917, Dye and partners in the Alexandria Park Association filed incorporation papers for what became Columbia Gardens Cemetery on Arlington Blvd.

The purchase was planned in part to handle overflow from Arlington Cemetery, nearly four miles away, noted Orrin Kronheim, writing on Columbia Gardens’ centennial in Northern Virginia Magazine in 2017. That Dye would simultaneously run Arlington Cemetery while investing in new plots seemed strange to modernday Arlingtonian Bill Brew, a retired Senate staffer who spent happy childhood hours at Columbia Gardens. Investing in development “while in uniform—that couldn’t happen today,” he told me.

Columbia Gardens, long run by the Thomas family, is the resting place of historic personages: car dealer Bob Peck, Sen. Robert Byrd, guitarist Roy Buchanan, and a host

Retired superintendent Ned Thomas Jr. confirmed the story his great-grandfather (a co-founder) relayed: “Someone in the War Department knew World War I was coming and that Arlington cemetery was basically full,” he told me. So the partners thought a new cemetery in Arlington would make a lot of money. “But the Army ended up annexing land from Fort Myer,” Thomas said, “and the rest is history.”

Perhaps. Attorney George Dodge, author of a book on Arlington Cemetery, told me that low internment figures around World War I “would not seem to warrant consideration of alternative locations for burial.”

That exhaustion of cemetery space would happen in our lifetimes. *** Last month Arlington lost Alan Levine, longtime owner of Mario’s Pizza who was my childhood neighbor.

Alan sold the iconic late-night Wilson Blvd. joint in 2012 for millions so he could go into the electric bicycle business (his Hybrid Pedals’ shop opened nearby). But his timing proved too early, as that new mode of personal transport is just now taking off.

My entrepreneurial pal was streetwise, but he battled private demons that battered him. Just this December we went back for a slice with pepperoni at Mario’s. He was disappointed the new owner had removed the long-displayed 1970s news clips of himself and his mother manning the counter.

PAGE 6 | MARCH 3 - 9. 2022

One of the Nation’s Foremost Weekly Newspapers

(Published by Benton Communications, Inc.)

FOUNDED IN 1991

Vol. XXXII, No. 3 March 3 - 9, 2022 • City of Falls Church ‘Business of the Year’ 1991 & 2001 • • Certified by the Commonwealth of Virginia to Publish Official Legal Notices • • Member, Virginia Press Association •

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A Poem About War

How do you write a poem about war?

Do you start with the little girl Crossing the soil that her grandfather loved, Holding her cat?

Or do you begin with the Russian boys Conscripted into tragedy, Conviction not appearing on command?

Maybe you begin with the old men sheltering in subways And the ones who have seen two wars already Standing guard outside.

Maybe you begin in the basement of the hospital Where nurses rock babies, Blessing beyond religion.

Maybe you begin with a President who values The sound of democracy more than His own living voice.

But of course the question is never really How do you begin a poem about war, But always “how does it end?”

It ends when everyone– The little girl, The conscripted soldiers, The old men, The babies, The nurses, The President– Can lie down under our shared stars, And sleep, Then wake to sunflowers growing.

By Laura Martin

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WWW.FCNP.COM The Falls Church News-Press is published weekly on Thursdays and is distributed free of charge throughout the City of Falls Church and the Greater Falls Church area. Offices are at 105 N. Virginia Ave.., #310, Falls Church, VA 22046.

Reproduction of this publication in whole or part is prohibited except with the written permission of the publisher. ©2022Benton Communications Inc.

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Employee Hails News-Press Upon Departure Editor, As my employment with the Falls Church News-Press concludes this week, permit me to share this.

When my daughter was a teenager we hosted a French exchange student, Eva, and it happened to be around Halloween time. Eva had never been trick or treating so the girls dressed up and joined the kids going door to door.

The next day we heard Eva talking to her family on the phone and she described it as “you get dressed up in costumes, you go door to door and people give you candy, and at the end of the night you go to the home of the newspaper publisher, and he takes your picture and it might get in the paper.”

Alexis interrupts her and says “Eva, the last part doesn’t happen everywhere; Falls Church is the only place that has a Mr. Benton.”

Truer words were never spoken; Falls Church is the only place that has Nick Benton. For over 30 years, Falls Church has enjoyed free access to their own local newspaper, thanks to the support of many great advertisers, but thanks mostly to Nick Benton, owner, publisher, and editor, keeping its doors open through good times and bad, and creating a significant voice in the community.

As with most significant people there are days when you want to wring his neck, and then other days you want to hug the stuffing out of him, although he’s not really a hugger. But it has been my honor to

[ LETTERS ]

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2. Play no favorites, never mix business and editorial policy.

Send us a letter and let us know what you think.

The deadline for Letters to the Editor is 5 p.m. Monday each week of publication Letters should be 350 words or less.

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P������� 1. Keep the news clean and fair.

4. Publish the news that is public property without fear or favor of friend or foe.

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6. Give “value received” for every dollar you take in.

7. Make the paper show profit if you can, but above all keep it clean, fearless and fair.

know him and to have played a small part in his orbit these last few years.

Melissa Morse Valdosta, Georgia

Maintaining Native Habitats Editor, Kudos to the FCNP for reporting on the Fellows Tract! It is great to know about the efforts to create a natural park filled with native trees and plantings for citizens to learn about and enjoy nature, rather than one using turf and concrete to create an artificial environment. The importance of maintaining native habitats should not be taken for granted.

We have less than 20 percent native plantings in Falls Church, while studies show that birds and insects require up to 70 percent native plantings to thrive. This space will truly be a gift to future generations.

Cherri Harris Falls Church

Paying for Football in Virginia Editor, It’s one thing to have football in Virginia. It’s entirely another thing for me to be forced to pay for it.

Sofi Stadium, site of the most recent Super Bowl, was built without public funding. We should be very skeptical of Dan Snyder’s revenue projections.

How many investors rush to partner with an organization that has a long history of mismanagement, poor performance, and scandals? Nor exactly a great PR move for Virginia. Let’s not forget that Virginia has something to offer to Snyder: people with enough money to buy tickets.

Roy Relph Falls Church

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C o m m e n ta ry

CO MME NT

A Time of Clarity in the Fog of Life Nicholas F. Benton FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS

These days bring moments of incredible clarity in the fog of life.

Never in our collective lifetimes have humans been exposed so blatantly to pure evil on the scale of what Putin has now unleashed in Ukraine, an unprovoked slaughter and destruction of a culture and countless of its innocent people by the full force of the military of a great world power.

Arising from this have been remarkable heralds of courage and resistance, beginning with the Ukrainian people themselves.

They’ve exhibited a resolve in the face of extreme violence that puts to shame lip service paeans to freedom and democracy by sunshine patriots around the world.

Both Putin’s evil and the resistance to it have provided a moral

clarity that sets in stark relief freedom and democracy’s true patriotism, as distinguished from the evil that has, among other things, animated so much of the ugly attacks on America’s own hard fought democracy by Trumpian reactionaries at home.

People fighting so valiantly to defend their democracy is in stark, stark contrast to the fascists whose notion of “patriotism” was to wave flags of the enemies of freedom, Nazis and Confederates. while attacking the bastion of our freedom, the nation’s Capital, on January 6 last year.

Ukraine’s brave and eloquent president Volodymyr Zelensky’s comment at the outset of Putin’s unprovoked invasion last week set the tone, in simple words expressing his resolve to stay and fight with his people that are already etched on the permanent edifice of humanity, noble struggle, “I’m not asking for a ride, but for ammunition.”

The images of Ukranians of all ages, including grandmothers in their 90s, locking and loading to fight for their freedom have choked up millions of people, and none so much so as the Washington Post video of an anonymous Ukrainian boy in the lobby of a hotel in Kharkiv as Putin’s bombs begin to rain on the city, playing on a piano the haunting notes of the Philip Glass and Paul Leonard-Morgan’s 2020 piece, “Walk to School.”

The video image now seen by millions worldwide, was a powerfully moving evocation of the incredible human pathos involved, of a youth, a piano, a talent, a melancholy tune about the simplest of peacetime activities, all about to go up in smithereens for no rational reason whatsoever. The hotel was bombed and the fate of the boy is unknown.

According to the Post, the co-composer Leonard-Morgan posted an “emoji” online in response to the video of a broken heart. It summed

MARCH 3 - 9, 2022 | PAGE 7

up the human reaction to the horror.

It also underscores the utter shame that partisans in the U.S. Republican Party should be feeling for their unimaginable support for Putin in this moment, starting with the Russian Agent No. 1, Trump himself. At the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference in Florida last week, pathetic delegates chanted, “Putin, Putin, Putin!” as the invasion of Ukraine began.

It was only when American public opinion sided so strongly with the Ukrainian people did some CPAC spokespersons offer impotent support for the Ukrainians, laced with attacks on President Biden for failing to stop Putin.

In a Yahoo-YouGov poll released Monday, among Trump voters, only three percent said that Biden is doing a better job leading his country than Putin, and 47 percent said Putin is doing a better job with his country. Trump, of course, has famously

praised Putin as a “genius,” and attacked American leaders as “dumb.”

Recall how Trump assailed NATO while in the White House and sought to condition U.S. military aid to Ukraine on Zelensky’s willingness to pin false charges on Biden, a move that precipitated a Congressional impeachment.

Most recently, this Tuesday two GOP lawmakers attempted to heckle Biden during his State of the Union address when he was standing tall for the free world in a powerful speech denouncing Putin and his invasion.

In this moment of unusual political and moral clarity, freedom-loving people worldwide are getting a solid glimpse of the world as it really is, with the new fascist international on one side, including Putin and Trump, and democratic institutions and governments backed by a brave and aroused public on the other.

We Have Never Been Here Before Continued from Page 5

cyberwarfare tools. He has the firepower to bring Ukraine to heel. But in this modern era we have never seen an unfree country, Russia, try to rewrite the rules of the international system and take over a free country that is as big as Ukraine — especially when the unfree country, Russia, has an economy that is smaller than that of Texas.

Then think about this: Thanks to rapid globalization, the EU is already Ukraine’s biggest trading partner — not Russia. In 2012, Russia was the destination for 25.7 percent of Ukrainian exports, compared with 24.9 percent going to the EU Just six years later, after Russia’s brutal seizure of Crimea and support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine and Ukraine’s forging of closer ties with the EU economically and politically, “Russia’s share of Ukrainian exports had fallen to only 7.7 percent, while the E.U.’s share shot up to 42.6 percent,” according to a recent analysis published by Bruegel.org.

If Putin doesn’t untangle those ties, Ukraine will continue drifting into the arms of the West — and if he does untangle them, he will strangle Ukraine’s economy.

And if the EU boycotts a Russia-controlled Ukraine, Putin will have to use Russia’s money to keep Ukraine’s economy afloat.

Was that factored into his war plans? It doesn’t seem like it. Or as a retired Russian diplomat in Moscow emailed me: “Tell me how this war ends? Unfortunately, there is

no one and nowhere to ask.”

But everyone in Russia will be able to watch. As this war unfolds on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, Putin cannot closet his Russian population — let alone the rest of the world — from the horrific images that will come out of this war as it enters its urban phase. On just the first day of the war, more than 1,300 protesters across Russia, many of them chanting “No to war,” were detained, the Times reported, quoting a rights group. That’s no small number in a country where Putin brooks little dissent.

This war with no historical parallel won’t be a stress test just for America and its European allies. It’ll also be one for China. Putin has basically thrown down the gauntlet to Beijing: “Are you going to stand with those who want to overturn the American-led order or join the U.S. sheriff’s posse?”

That should not be — but is — a wrenching question for Beijing. “The interests of China and Russia today are not identical,” Nader Mousavizadeh, founder and CEO of the global consulting firm Macro Advisory Partners, told me. “China wants to compete with America in the Super Bowl of economics, innovation and technology — and thinks it can win. Putin is ready to burn down the stadium and kill everyone in it to satisfy his grievances.”

The dilemma for the Chinese, added Mousavizadeh, “is that their preference for the kind of order, stability and global-

ization that has enabled their economic miracle is in stark tension with their resurgent authoritarianism at home and their ambition to supplant America — either by China’s strength or America’s weakness — as the world’s dominant superpower and rules setter.”

I have little doubt that in his heart China’s president, Xi Jinping, is hoping that Putin gets away with abducting Ukraine and humiliating the U.S. — all the better to soften up the world for his desire to seize Taiwan and fuse it back to the Chinese motherland.

But Xi is nobody’s fool. Here are a couple of other interesting facts from the wired world: First, China’s economy is more dependent on Ukraine than Russia’s.

According to Reuters, “China leapfrogged Russia to become Ukraine’s biggest single trading partner in 2019, with overall trade totaling $18.98 billion last year, a nearly 80 percent jump from 2013. … China became the largest importer of Ukrainian barley in the 2020-21 marketing year,” and about 30 percent of all of China’s corn imports last year came from farms in Ukraine.

Second, China overtook the United States as the European Union’s biggest trading partner in 2020, and Beijing cannot afford for the EU to be embroiled in conflict with an increasingly aggressive Russia and unstable Putin. China’s stability depends — and the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party rests — on Xi’s ability to sustain and grow his already

massive middle class. And that depends on a stable and growing world economy.

I don’t expect China to impose sanctions on Russia, let alone arm the Ukrainians, like the U.S. and the EU. All that Beijing has done so far is mumble that Putin’s invasion was “not what we would hope to see” — while quickly implying that Washington was a “culprit” for “fanning up flames” with NATO expansion and its recent warnings of an imminent Russian invasion.

So China is obviously torn, but of the three key superpowers with nuclear weapons — the U.S., China and Russia — China, by what it says or doesn’t say, holds a very big swing vote on whether Putin gets away with his rampage of Ukraine or not.

To lead is to choose, and if China has any pretense of supplanting the U.S. as the world leader, it will have to do more than mumble.

For all these reasons, at this early stage, I will venture only one prediction about Putin: Vladimir, the first day of this war was the best day of the rest of your life. I have no doubt that in the near term, your military will prevail, but in the long run leaders who try to bury the future with the past don’t do well. In the long run, your name will live in infamy.

By Thomas L. Friedman © 2022 The New York Times

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PAGE 8 | MARCH 3 - 9, 2022

A Penny for Your Thoughts

News of Greater Falls Church

By Supervisor Penny Gross

It should be no surprise that residential real estate values are soaring, and have been ratcheting up exponentially for the past year or two.

Exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the residential market in Northern Virginia has been especially “hot.” Historically low mortgage rates and a demand for housing that exceeds supply mean that properties are snapped up quickly, often for much more than the assessed value, or even the asking price. The requirements for assessing property in Virginia are established in the Constitution of Virginia, especially Sections 1 and 2 of Article X. All assessments are required to be at fair market value.

That “fair market value” is creating frustration and outrage among some homeowners, who are responsible for paying both the mortgage and the property taxes, usually via the escrow portion of the mortgage. If you’ve made no improvements in your house, but your neighbor put an addition on their home, or that infill lot down the block has a brand new house or two on it, the values in your neighborhood, based on the comparable sales (“comps”) most likely went up.

Assessments for most residential properties in Mason District increased between 5 and 19 percent, although one smaller Falls Church neighborhood off Sleepy Hollow Road saw values go up nearly 25 percent, because of six existing properties that sold in 2022 for an average of $1.13 million each. The highest price paid for a residential property in Mason District in 2022 was $3 million, for a half-acre property on Lake Barcroft.

Under Virginia’s antiquated tax structure, revenues to support local county services are derived, primarily, from the real estate tax on residential, commercial, and industrial properties. Reliance

on the real estate tax (a structure that dates back to the 1700s, when Thomas Jefferson was governor of Virginia) to fund schools and local services is unsustainable. The Virginia General Assembly caps or controls local governments’ authority to diversify revenue sources, and repeated efforts to get the General Assembly to grant counties some authorities similar to those utilized by independent cities have failed. Additionally, Fairfax County receives less than 25 cents on every dollar of income taxes paid to Richmond; the state formula needs to be changed so that the dependence on real estate property taxes to fund schools, public safety, and other vital services can be reduced for homeowners.

As noted in last week’s column, County Executive Bryan Hill unveiled his proposed county budget for Fiscal Year 2023 on February 22. The proposed budget fully funds the School Board’s operating request (the school transfer), provides a 4.01 percent Market Rate Adjustment for county employees, and addresses priorities such as affordable housing, Diversion First, and public safety staffing. Mr. Hill’s proposed budget provides an opportunity for the Board of Supervisors to reduce the tax rate, which currently is $1.14 per $100 valuation. Board members already are discussing a reduction of several cents, in advance of advertising a tax rate at our meeting on March 8. Once a tax rate is advertised, the Board cannot adopt a rate higher than advertised, but it can adopt a rate that is lower than the advertised rate. Stay tuned.  Penny Gross is the Mason District Supervisor, in the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. She may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov.

C i t y o f Fa l l s C h u r c h

CR IME R EPO RT

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Week of Feb. 21 — 27, 2022

Fraud, Dulany Pl, Feb 24, 9:59 AM, an incident of fraud was reported.

Fraud, Wilson Blvd, Feb 21, 12:17 PM, an incident of fraud was reported.

Larceny from Building, Wilson Blvd, Feb 25, between 8 AM and 5 PM, unknown suspect(s) took items of value located near an unlocked back door.

Trespass, Wilson Blvd, Feb 21, 3:22 PM, a male, 31, of no fixed address, was issued a summons for Trespass.

Destruction of Property, Grove Ave, Feb 22, 10:38 AM, unknown suspect(s) destroyed City property.

www.FCNP.com

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Senator Dick Saslaw’s

Richmond Report The month of March has arrived and brings with it the anticipated conclusion of the General Assembly on March 12. After the November 2 election, we anticipated the political game plan for the new Republican majority in the House of Delegates.

However, what has been startling are the aggressive attacks by this fledgling administration on public education, public health measures, voter rights, the environment, and working families.

In light of a series of executive orders from the Administration, it is a bit ironic when the Governor states “there is more that unites us than divides us.” Senate Democrats have held the line to ensure past legislative progress withstands these assaults. Conversely, the new majority in the House has taken great pains to aid and abet he Governor’s agenda by introducing rollback legislation and proposing spending cuts.

Far and away the most contentious issue of the session has centered around local authority and pandemic protocols in our schools.

Governor Youngkin took a victory lap when he signed SB 739/HB 1272 into law after amending it with a March 1 emergency enactment date. I voted against these bills because they affirmed the loud voices of a disruptive minority. The bills cancelled local authority to set policy reflective of their communities and disavowed science-based strategies to stem the spread of Covid-19.

In the final days of this General Assembly, building the biennial budget is the most pressing item left for consideration. A lot of ink has been dedicated to the recent exchange that I had with Sec’y Cummings as he presented impressive revenue numbers. Despite the good news data, the Governor is trying to paint an economic picture of economic gloom and doom. I challenge that rhetoric by reminding the Secretary of Finance that Virginia is fiscally well-positioned and is enjoying a steady climb back from the pandemic stranglehold of the past two years.

The successful navigation of the Covid-19 pandemic came from evidence-based science as well as pumping the brakes on spending.

Virginia’s surplus is the result of reforecasting and making adjustments.

Northern Virginia contributes greatly to the Commonwealth’s

economic stability by providing roughly half of the state’s income.

Thanks to its robust infrastructure and flexible work options, many professionals, government contractors, and federal workers were able to continue working during the pandemic. As a result, tax revenue flowed to state coffers while spending was redirected to addressing the immediate healthcare impacts of the pandemic and providing for our children and elderly.

Let’s not forget about the infusion of ARPA, PPP, and other federal dollars that became available to offset a national recession and/ or potential depression. The Senate has traditionally been the more temperate chamber when crafting the state spending plan. Acting on the introduced budget, Senate Finance and Appropriation Committee members have focused on a structurally balanced budget. The Senate has proposed sustainable investments in public education including capital improvements, increased compensation for teachers and law enforcement, the environment and water quality improvements, mental health services, and other aid to localities.

On the other hand, the House proposed budget removes more than $3 billion from the revenues on hand through one-time refunds, doubling tax credits, and trimming existing programs like voter education. Their budget also includes less for teachers, law enforcement, and reduced spending on essential social services like mental health.

I am committed to the Senate proposal because it addresses many unmet needs. Support for elimination of the grocery tax has been around for years. I can support that initiative if our localities are kept whole. Let’s not forget the primary revenue source for localities is property taxes.

The final days of this session are guaranteed to be stressful and polarized by political ideology. My mission remains to advance the best policy for the majority of Virginians that find themselves somewhere in the middle of the political mainstream. We are equally disturbed by the aggressive conflict Russia has started in Europe and its potential impact in the U.S. and Virginia.  Senator Saslaw represents the 35th District in the Virginia State Senate.

He may be emailed at district35@senate.virginia.gov.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

LO CA L

F.C. Episcopal Celebrates Diversity With LGBTQ Rector

by Nicholas F. Benton

Falls Church News-Press

It’s come full circle now for the faithful at the historic Falls Church Episcopal Church. In 2004 a majority of parishioners followed their then-rector out of the Episcopal denomination in protest of the election of its first openly-gay bishop the year before. Not only did they vote themselves out, aligning with a notoriously anti-gay Nigerian Anglican sect instead, but they then proceeded to illegally occupty the historic church campus in the center of the City of Falls Church for the next seven years before all legal options were exhausted and they were finally forced to leave.

In the meantime, what became known as the “Continuing Episcopalians” of the congregation, held fast, welcomed to worship in the fellowship hall of the Falls Church Presbyterian Church across E. Broad Street, while being prohibited by the now-Nigerian Anglicans from setting foot on the historic church property, including its small sanctuary that pre-dates the American Revolution and spent time occupied by both sides in the Civil War but primarily as a temporary hospital for Union soldiers.

But now all has come, as they say, full circle. That is, with the historic property restored to its rightful owners, the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, in 2014, its faithful continuing Episcopalian congregation voted in 2021 to call as its

new rector the openly-gay Rev. Berl Salmon, who along with his husband, are the new face of the church as its growth surge, begun with the reclamation of the property and the yeoman work of its first minister, the Rev. John Ohmer, continues on. Ohmer’s selection was made with the help of the diocese.

Thus, the openly-gay Rev. Salmon became the first rector called to the church by a recruitment process involving entirely its own vestry and denomination since their restoration to their rightful standing in the center of the Falls Church community.

“I feel very strongly that we are called to welcome faithful LGBTQ folks to this church,” Rev. Salmon told the News-Press. “This is a vibrant congregation with a lot of energy and young families,” he said.

The church has joined others in Falls Church, including the Falls Church Presbyterian, Christ Crossman and Dulin United Methodist Church, profiled on the front page of the the February 27 News-Press (“Local Churches Welcome LGBTQ Individuals”) to reach out with signage and other measures to let LGBTQ folks know they are welcome. It is a lot of welcoming in a small city the size of Falls Church, and is augmented by the fact that the News-Press’ owner-editor Nicholas Benton is openly gay and brings a rich history as a “pioneer” of the modern LGBTQ

movement. Benton brought gay pioneers the late Frank Kameny and Lilly Vincenz to speak before a standing room only crowd at the then-Stacy’s Coffee Shop in downtown Falls Church in the early 2000s.

With the defectors expelled from the historic site, the continuing Episcopalians have led their church to host a series of pro-civil rights events, hosting marches and seminars sponsored by the Tinner Hill Foundation and the Falls Church Social Justice Committee’s co-sponsorship with the NewsPress of a panel presentation in 2019 in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, recognized as the starting point of the modern LGBTQ movement.

Among many other things, the church also dedicated a stone seeking forgiveness for the deployment of African-American slaves in the construction of the original church in the 18th century.

The Rev. Salmon began serving the Falls Church Episcopal church as its rector on July 1 last year.

He is a native of Natchez, Mississippi, attended Millsap College and Yale Divinity School where he received his Master of Divinity degree. He came upon concluding his Associate Ministry for Pastoral Care, Christian Education and Outreach at the Bethesda-Bythe-Sea church in Palm Beach, Florida, and now lives in the F.C. Episcopal’s rectory in Falls Church with his husband, Bob Henkel.

MARCH 3 - 9, 2022 | PAGE 9

Faces of Falls Church

I BUMPED INTO LEON over at the Antique Annex on West Broad St. the other day where he is one of the dealers at the shop. Leon became a resident of Falls Church in 1987 when he moved to the Little City from Kansas City, KS. Lamenting the idea that much of Falls Church’s History is handed down through the generations, he told me, ‘I wish there were more Falls Church Memorabilia to sell.’ (Photo: J. Michael Whalen)

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Fa l l s C h u r c h

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

School News & Notes Girls Basketball Regional Champions

tion against international and US teams, Capital won bronze at the tournament.

On Friday, February 25th, the Varsity Girls Basketball team clinched the Region 3B Championship, beating Brentsville District 67-22 before a loud and enthusiastic crowd. Fantastic performances by leading scorer Junior Elizabeth Creed (25pts), Junior Peyton Jones (14 pts), and a magical 12 points by Senior Zoraida Icabalceta. Congratulations to Zorida for reaching the 1,000 point milestone in her career as a Mustang. 2 trophies down, 1 to go...

Next Game (Class 3 State Quarter-Final): Friday, March 4th at home, 7:00 pm vs. TBA.

Girls Wrestling Sponsors

Swim & Dive Team at States Last week, the Meridian Swim & Dive team traveled to Richmond, Virginia, for the 2022 Class 3 Swim and Dive Championships. The Mustangs sent 22 athletes to compete against over 30 high schools. Mustang Diving kicked off the event on Thursday evening at St. Catherine’s School, where the Mustangs sent a record number of divers to a State Meet. The Boys team started off the events at 5:30, where they took on 16 Divers from across the State. The Girls Team followed at 6:30 with 20 divers, many from Southwest Virginia.

Four of the five divers, before the start of the season, had little to no experience diving but continued to work hard each week, earning their spots at States after just three months of diving.

Junior Wins Bronze at Tournament Olivér Császi, a freshman swimmer at MHS, plays water polo with the Capital Water Polo club. Capital is one of the best year-round water polo clubs in the DMV area and the USA Water Polo (USAWP) northeast zone. Last weekend, Olivér competed with the 16U boys team in the Florida International Water Polo Tournament. After several days of intense competi-

The Meridian High School Mustangs Wrestling team, families, and athletic department are working hard to provide an outstanding inclusive environment for female wrestlers. The sport of wrestling offers an opportunity for young girls to learn and demonstrate the values of dedication, respect, determination, and sportsmanship. The leaders of tomorrow are learning valuable lessons on the wrestling mat today.

Become a St. Pattys Girls Wrestling Sponsor!

Can you support the development of MHS’ female wrestlers by sponsoring the first-ever St. Pattys Postseason Girls Tournament? Donations will help cover the costs of their Champions of Character T-shirts, referees, and administrative expenses of hosting a tournament through USA Wrestling. More details can be found in Monday’s edition of the Morning Announcements.

Meridian Scholastic Bowl at States The Meridian Scholastic Bowl team headed to the State Tournament in Williamsburg over the weekend. The team came in third place — beating Tabb and losing to Rockbridge and Hidden Valley.

IB Student Excellence Award Application The Mid-Atlantic Association of IB World Schools (IBMA) is now accepting applications for the IBMA Student Excellence Award. Students who represent the ideals of the IB Learner Profile and who have displayed a commitment to service are encouraged to apply. Two FCCPS PYP students received this award in the past. Perhaps another one of our outstanding students will do it again this year.

The award is $500 for at least

ON FRIDAY FEBRUARY 25, 2022, the Meridian High School Athletics Department celebrated the first group of Seniors who have been recruited to play college athletics next year. This signing ceremony featured the following Seniors (l. to r.): George Papadopoulos (football at Williams College), Eleanor Gieser (field hockey at Widener University), Annie Moore (lacrosse at Bowdoin College), Emma Ward (tennis at Gettysburg College), Elle Ehrlich (softball at Brandeis University), Zoraida Icabalceta (basketball at Ithaca College), and Bella Paradiso (lacrosse at the U.S. Naval Academy). (Photo: Becki Creed) one student in a PYP or MYP Programme and $1,000 for at least one student in a DP or CP Programme.

You can access and view guidelines at http://www.ibmid a t l a n t i c . o rg / Aw a r d _ G u i d e lines_22.pdf.

To apply, students must fill out the application on SurveyMonkey at surveymonkey.com/r/ MH33LDG. Note: Application portfolios are due by March 15, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. No late applications will be considered.

Student Selected for Virginia Honors Chorus MHS wishes congratulations to Ailene Neal for being selected for the All Virginia Honors Chorus. Students must first audition for and participate in District Chorus to audition for All Virginia. Auditions for All VA are held during the district events, and 24 students are sent from each district. All VA will be held April 21-23.

MHS Mock Trial Undefeated The team won all three matches against The Hague School

(2-0), Compass Homeschool Program (1-1 +2), and Woodrow Wilson High School (1-1 +7), and they had a bye because their first opponent (Oakton HS) dropped out. The team members that participated at regionals include Michael Bartholomew, Katherine Anderson, Maureen Tremblay, Brielle Collins, Alex Schwartz, Olivia Wanick, Elena Clark-Wilson.

Michael was voted best lawyer by four of the six judges.

Katherine, Maureen, and Brielle got the best lawyer votes, and Alex, Olivia, Elena, and Brielle all got votes for best witness. The state competition is the weekend of March 19th and 20th, where the top 20 teams in the state compete.

Henderson Town Hall Engages Students The SCA and Henderson Administration hosted a Town Hall at the Middle School last Thursday. Topics discussed included inclusivity, Covid Mitigation, Social Emotional Learning, and more. This student-led conversation was positive and constructive. The brave students shared their feelings from a very emotional place — on topics such as inclusivity, diversity, mental

health issues; social interactions; computer screen time; and more outdoor time.

Solutions suggested: Students could make presentations for sharing their backgrounds; School admin could look at constructive ways to problem solve screen time; perhaps students could help plan Pack lessons; add outside time to the schedule; join the Social Justice Club.

Administrators shared that engaging with students is always a priority, and dialogue is the first step. They reiterated that students’ opinions matter and that the admin team is open to listening and that they were all proud of them for being courageous for sharing with peers. They offered students a Google form that they could fill out to continue the conversation.

Student Wins Award in Costume Contest In Ms. England’s OSE thirdgrade class, William Becker won the Ambassador’s Award in the Hall Costume Contest at last week’s Katsucon at National Harbor. He received an award signed by the Japanese Ambassador to the US presented by representatives from the Embassy of Japan.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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MARCH 3 - 9, 2022 | PAGE 11

Camps Are More Important Now Than Ever After Months of Isolation

by Amanda Snead

Falls Church News-Press

March 2020 marked many changes, particularly for youth as schools began to operate virtually and extracurricular activities came to a halt. However, things appear to slowly be returning to “normal” in the Falls Church area and camps will be back in full swing this spring and summer.

Camps are more important now than ever after months of isolation. Camps can offer a variety of benefits from fostering friendships and promoting independence to providing time outdoors and away from screens.

Falls Church and the surrounding areas offer a wide variety of camps for any interest and any age. From arts and theater to science and technology or out-

door recreation, there is something for every child.

“Camps have been a big part of children’s summer experiences for generations,” said Alex Harris, President and Founder of Evolution Basketball Training.

“With their lives getting turned upside down over the past two years, attending camp and having life be normal again is critical for us to turn the corner and allowing kids to again be kids. Whether it’s basketball or any other camp, I think every child should have the chance for social interaction again like we all knew growing up.”

“Our students have told us over and over that returning to in person camps and educational programs is a ‘lifeline’ for them,” said Laura Connors Hull, Founder and Producing Director of Creative Cauldron.

“Theater and the arts provide

critical opportunities for young people to build self-confidence, and test new skills. For many who participate in the arts, they find a home...an accepting and welcoming place where they are free to express ideas and opinions, and create. Creative Cauldron has provided arts enrichment experiences after school and in the summer months for 20 years, but the past two years, we have realized just how important our work is, and how great an impact we can have on a young person’s life.”

Some camps were able to stay open and operate virtually during the pandemic, but going back in person has proved helpful.

“We were fortunate enough to run peak pandemic, we did a virtual session of our camp,” said

Continued on Page 14

FROM “UNIQUE SWEETS” camps (pictured here) to puzzles, photography and more, Summer Cove offers a wide variety of camps for any interest. (Photo Courtesy of Summer Cove)

Youth & Teen Art Camps at The Art League ages 5+ fine arts

Register online at w w w.theartleague.org /classes

The region’s longest-running art camp!

The Art League | 105 N Union St & 305 Madison St | Alexandria, VA 22314 | 703 683 2323 | school@theartleague.org

PAGE 12 | MARCH 3 - 9, 2022

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

STEM Summer Camps in No. Va. Provide Strong Math/Science Foundation for Kids

by Alex Russell

With the weather getting warmer, there is a growing abundance of options for families looking to enroll their kids in fun, group-based, and educational summer camps and activities right here in the Northern Virginia area.

Besides the typical, year-round athletic and nature-based summer programs, STEM-focused camps have grown in both variety and prominence both in Falls Church and in an ever-widening radius around the Little City.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the “actual and projected growth in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)” field has created “an emphasis on STEM education.” The NCES report also addresses the fact that “the supply of students interested in” STEM has spurred “educators and policymakers” to work on “increasing student

interest and engagement in K — 12 STEM education.”

Findings published by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) underscore this emphasis on STEM, with “technological competence” and “problem solving and creative thinking” being some of the biggest components in education today.

Tim Newton, STEM Program Manager at Baroody Camps in Falls Church, shares this perspective, saying that “over the past two years, it has become extremely noticeable how impactful important the virtual world currently is.” The demand for these camps is increasing, and as a result, Baroody Camps strives to “provide those necessary building blocks for young learners to follow their passions.”

Regarding their methodology, Newton explains that “the programs that we run are not just fun and games, although that is what it may look like at first to a student.” The

various STEM classes available at Baroody Camps — from Lego Robotics to Minecraft 101, as well as Scratch Coding and Kodu Game Design — “build upon critical thinking, social emotional skills, problem solving, computer literacy, and much more.”

Acknowledging that not every school has the needed means at its disposal to fully engage in technology education, Baroody Camps works to “bring the majority of what is needed, such as devices, laptops, Lego kits” among other items, “so that students normally need only to bring their imagination and learning spirit.”

The general timeframe for camps and events at Baroody spans a 6 — 10 week course, running once a week for an hour before or after school. “We run classes like this during the fall, winter, and spring as we work with the PTA.” During the

Continued on Page 15

BAROODY CAMPS offer a wide variety of STEM-related camps from robotics to Minecraft, science and chemistry. (Photo Courtesy of Baroody Camps).

CITY OF FALLS CHURCH RECREATION & PARKS

Summer Camps 2022 fallschurchva.gov/Camps

Big Fun, Little City

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MARCH 3 - 9, 2022 | PAGE 13

Spring Camp:

Summer Camp:

April • 9 am - 4 pm

June through August • 9 am - 4 pm

Afterschool and school closure camp also provided!

Ages 5-12 Contact: camps@goscramble.com Find us online at: goscramble.com/camps We want to emphasize the Scramble logo.

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Falls Church | Troop1996

Explore the Outdoors with Troop 1996

Summer 2021 at Camp Shenandoah Learn what Scouting is all about on Monday, March 7, 2022, at 7:30pm! Scouts BSA Troop 1996 will be holding an informational “Introduction to Scouting” meeting at Mary Ellen Henderson MS, and we welcome all young men and women (current 5th graders and up) to attend. We are an active local troop, with monthly outings, campouts, hikes, Eagle projects, and summer camp and High Adventure crews – come find out more!

Troop 1996 meets weekly at Mary Ellen Henderson Middle school on Monday nights at 7:30pm except when FCCPS schools are closed. www.facebook.com/ScoutsBSATroop1996

www.troop1996.com

scoutmaster@troop1996.com

LET YOUR CREATIVITY run wild with camps that incorporate drama, music, movement and visual art at Creative Cauldron. (Photo Courtesy of Creative Cauldron) Continued from Page 11

Megan Zinn, Camp Director for Summer Cove. “We were able to still provide some sort of activity for campers and I know that parents really enjoyed that. Even just being able to give kids the opportunity to have something different to do was a nice change of pace for them. Last year, we were able to run in person again. The kids had so much energy and they were just excited to be out of the house, be somewhere else and get to be around other people their age doing things that they don’t normally get to do at home. Camps are such a wonderful place for kids.”

Emily Minter, Camp Director at Terrapin Adventures, agrees with Zinn.

“Children have missed out on a lot of social emotional learning due to isolation.

During a time when children couldn’t attend school or regular activities in person, summer camps were able to step in to provide safe spaces for kids to do that.

The most important work that camp professionals have done over the last three years has been building a space for kids to interact and learn how to empathize with

each other. We are an Adventure Camp that’s entirely outdoors based. We’ve been providing a safe space for kids to try new things, get a little out of their comfort zone, and really build confidence in themselves—things that isolation has made harder. We get to teach kids how to be brave and resilient during a time when things have been so uncertain and worrying for them. Whether a child has spent their first night away from home in a tent for the first time or has finally conquered their fear of heights by jumping off of the zip line, we have been incredibly grateful to watch campers find their strength and resilience at camp,” she said.

According to Laurence Smallman, owner of Scramble, it is also important to focus on both physical and cognitive play— one of the main focuses of his European-style play center. He also expressed the importance of providing a way for children not to be affected by the drama of the world around them.

“Scramble offers play all year. We also have amazing camps that combine

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summer months, Newton says that “scheduling takes a bit of a shift as” Baroody Camps hosts full and “half day, week-long camps,” helping children “develop their math, reading, fine motor, and typing skills as they learn new concepts in engineering and computer science.”

Vera Lichtenberg, Founding Director of Mason Game and Technology Academy (MGTA) in Fairfax, VA — which is in turn part of the Virginia Serious Game Institute (VSGI) and the Mason Computer Game Design Program — shed light on MGTA and the chance it offers to those students wishing to explore core STEM concepts with university professors as well as advanced-level students.

MGTA, founded in 2013, offers classes and programs that are assembled using the efforts and expertise of Mason’s Game Design and Computer Science program. Lichtenberg explained that MGTA’s courses are “modeled after the university’s Computer Game Design” curriculum, “infusing aspects of entrepreneurship, team dynamics, and project-based learning into every class.”

“MGTA classes bridge edu-

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cation and technology through experiential learning activities,” making for a program that teaches students “long-lasting skill sets that help them adapt to the rapid changes and advancements in technology.” Regarding the way classes operate, she added that “each class concludes with a final project and presentation, to enhance participants’ college application portfolios.”

MGTA offers on-site programs and events, as well as virtual options that, according to Lichtenberg, capture “the energy and magic of a live classroom.”

“All of our online courses include a mix of live-streamed interactive learning experiences combined with team and/or virtual classroom research, design, and creation time, as well as help sessions from TA’s (teaching assistants).” Students can expect to learn a variety of topics, such as coding and game design through programming languages like Unity and Python, 3D art modeling, 2D digital game art, and Roblox game development, among other related spheres.

Brian Moran, co-founder of Boolean Girl — an Arlingtonbased non-profit organization founded in 2014 that works to teach coding and engineering

to girls in girls-only and co-ed camps and virtual classes — spoke about the organization’s mission to “improve gender diversity in STEM.” In addition to camps held during the summer, Boolean Girl offers “after school classes” and “in-person events,” many of them free, in order to “reach as many girls as possible,” with a focus on “girls in grades 3 — 8.”

Moran pointed out that studies have displayed how “in elementary school, girls are just as interested in STEM, but that changes rapidly through middle school.” At Boolean Girl, the educational staff tries to “prepare the girls to enter these programs on equal footing with the boys who have frequently been coding for years.”

Expanding on the camps, he outlined that the curriculum begins with “coding in Scratch, a block-based language developed

by MIT to teach kids to code.”

Other camps in the program expand upon those initial coding lessons, teaching “electronics where kids build circuits.”

Eventually, students can participate in camps that offer instruction in “Python and Artificial Intelligence,” which are geared towards middle school-age girls.

Creativity — which is under-

scored through storytelling in the level-one coding camp — as well as “cross-subject areas,” like animation, are some of the added benefits that round-out the program. Students get to “animate the stories that they create,” learning to code as well as how to “build a story with a beginning, middle, and end.”

Moran clarified that while Boolean Girl advertises “camps as all girls, over time” they have seen an “increasing demand from” boys, as well. “Each summer some boys register and attend” and get to “experience what the girls in STEM camps typically experience,” i.e., being “the only boy in the room.”

Reflecting on the teaching staff, Moran shared that “99 percent of the teaching is done by…female college students getting STEM degrees at top tier schools like UVA, Cornell, Penn, VA Tech.”

Boolean Girl also hires local high school students to assist with instructional duties.

“More and more of the [high school] students are girls that participated in our programs when they were younger…these women are great mentors and role models to the younger girls,” with some of them having gone to “the same elementary school or middle school the campers are going to.”

MARCH 3 - 9, 2022 | PAGE 15

Moran sees great value in the act of “teaching a subject” one is studying, explaining that this helps the high school and college students increase their “mastery” of the particular STEM branch they are involved in.

The Boolean Girl Clubhouse, a weekend program set up for girls and non-binary individuals who are interested in learning coding and electronics, “is a great way for girls thinking about our camps to get a feel” for the sorts of events and activities offered at Boolean Girl.

The Club, sponsored by Amazon, meets for three hours on Saturdays from 9 a.m. — 12 p.m. Topics like “digital wellness,” which focuses on making smart, responsible choices online, are also incorporated into the Club.

Baroody Camps, the Mason Game and Technology Academy, and Boolean Girl follow Covid19 health protocols to ensure the safety of all involved. For more information about Baroody Camps, visit baroodycamps.com or email info@baroodycamps. com; for more information on the MGTA, visit mgta.gmu.edu or email mgta@gmu.edu; for more information on Boolean Girl, visit booleangirl.org or email info@ booleangirl.org.

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• LUNCH AND SNACKS PROVIDED • 40 ACRE CAMPUS • SWIMMING, HORSEBACK RIDING, ARCHERY AND MORE FOR THE ARTISTIC CHILD, Creative Cauldron camps offer a way to express creativity and live performance experience. (Photo Courtesy of Creative Cauldron).

Continued from Page 14

JUSTIN WALKER SOFTBALL CAMP 2022

Register at: https://www.justinwalkersoftballcamp.com June 20-22, 2022 Youth (grades 1st-8th)

$300 Sample Daily Schedule

9:00am: Check in 9:15am: Stations/Skill instruction 11:30am: LUNCH 12:15pm: Warm up 12:30pm: Position play/Skill instruction 1:00pm: Scrimmages 2:00pm: Pick up

• George Mason Head Coach Justin Walker welcomes you to register for this summer’s Softball Camps! Camps will focus on the fundamentals of all aspects of the game including proper throwing mechanics, increasing arm strength, defensive fundamentals (IF, OF, pitching & catching), swing mechanics & base running.

• Players of all ability levels are welcome. Campers are divided by age & ability level.

• We have assembled a veteran group of coaches experienced in camp instruction & dedicated to helping each camper become a better softball player.

Location: George Mason University Softball Field

Camps are open to any and all participants within the specified age range.

For questions about Justin Walker Softball Camp Please contact: Justin Walker 703-993-5630 (O) • 419-569-1853 (C) • jrosswal@gmu.edu George Mason University Attn: Justin Walker— Softball MS 3A5 4400 University Drive Fairfax, VA 22030

thoughtful activities and the all-important play in our amazing play areas,” explained Smallman. “As a quick reminder, physical play is gross motor, or large movements, and fine motor, or small movements. This type of play is important for physical health, including bone density, muscle strength and functioning, and our flexibility. Cognitive play provides a workout for our brains. It allows us to create, imagine, and socialize.

At the higher levels of play, all these are brought together in what is called narrative play. The play systems at Scramble excel at providing children of all ages and all abilities the time, space, and opportunity to ‘do’ these types of play in an incredibly clean and safe environment. This is one of many reasons why our high quality camps are so popular with children and parents alike.”

STEM camps are also a great way to help kids nurture their problem solving

skills, foster creativity and teach them new skills, as well as developing new ones.

Camps like Code Ninjas offer a variety of activities for kids to improve their technology skills.

“We understand that kids have the advantage of technology in today’s environment, in which we strive to utilize that knowledge in a fun and educational way,” said Cassidy Olimpo, the Director of Marketing and Events for Code Ninjas.

“Roblox is a very popular platform for kids to play on. In our Roblox camps, kids go behind the scenes of the Roblox games they love and learn how to make their own 3D animated games through the Roblox Studio. Not only are they learning about Roblox, but they are also creating longlasting friendships with other campers who enjoy the same things they do.”

After months of isolation, now is the time to get back out and enjoy camps again.

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News-Press

Community News & Notes MRSPL New Reduced Hours Starting Mar. 7 The Mary Riley Styles Public Library will be reducing its hours of operation beginning Monday, Mar. 7, due to long-standing staffing shortages. The new schedule will be as follows: Monday — Wednesday, 10 a.m. — 8 p.m.; Thursday & Friday, 10 a.m. — 5 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday, 10 a.m.

— 3 p.m. These hours were selected to ensure access seven days a week, including three evenings; maximize peak usage times; provide a consistent, easy to remember schedule; and maintain current levels of children, teen, and adult programming.

Birding the Harriet Tubman Byway.

Join Harriet Tubman Tours and Delmarva Birding Weekends for a day of birdwatching, or birding, along the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway in Dorchester County, Maryland. This tour will educate visitors about the life and times of famed freedom fighter and human rights activist Harriet Tubman, “The Moses of Her People,” who repeatedly risked her life along the Underground Railroad to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends. The route courses through the farms and Chesapeake Bay marshes of Dorchester County, home to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, featuring some of the best birding and bald eagle watching on the east coast. Tour begins at the Brodess Farm Greenbrier Road, Bucktown, Maryland 21613, and runs from Thursday, Mar. 3 — Saturday, Apr. 9, from 1 — 5 p.m. For information, visit delmarvabirding.com/ blackwater-nwr-dorchester-county or call (443) 614 – 0261.

Justin Zakia Named CEO of Fairfax Radiology Centers Justin Zakia has joined Fairfax Radiology Centers, LLC, as Chief Executive Officer. His previous position in healthcare administration was at OrthoVirginia, the largest musculoskeletal physician group in the state. Before embark-

ing on his present career, he served in the U.S. Navy; he holds a Master of Science degree in Healthcare Delivery Science from Dartmouth College and a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Technology from Cornell University. Fairfax Radiology Centers is the largest radiology practice in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. With more than 90 subspecialized radiologists and 800 employees, FRC provides leading-edge medical imaging at more than 20 outpatient locations throughout Northern Virginia.

New Covid Testing Vendor Going Into Effect Mar. 8 The Virginia Department of Health is transitioning to a new ViSSTA Covid-19 screening program vendor. This program provides free weekly in-school testing for students and employees.

Testing with the new vendor will begin Tuesday, Mar. 8. Anyone who is symptomatic or who has been exposed can receive a rapid test kit from their school’s health clinic. Contact Jenn Beck (beckj@fccps.org) for preschool/ elementary school health info and/or Laura Giles (gilesj@fccps. org) for middle/high school health info. Contact John Brett (jwbrett@ fccps.org) for enrollment questions and Rebecca Sharp (rsharp@ fccps.org) for other inquiries and support. Visit my.primary.health/l/ falls-church-city-public-schools to register.

The INOVA Blood Donor Services Seeks Donors Make a life-saving appointment with the INOVA Blood Drive at www.inovabloodsaves.org. Donor Services will be operating Sunday, Mar. 13 at 2910 District Ave, Fairfax, VA 22031, from 10 a.m.

— 2:30 p.m. Donors will receive a t-shirt for their important contribution to INOVA.

Falls Church Women’s History Walk Join the Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation, Falls Church Elected Women, and the Falls Church Women’s History Group on

THE UNRULY THEATRE PROJECT Improv Show will take place this Friday at 7 p.m. at Old Firehouse, 1440 Chain Bridge Rd. in McLean. Come help spread some joy while being wildly entertained by these young performers. (Photo Courtesy of McLean Community Center).

Sunday, May 2, from 11 a.m. — 2 p.m., for a loop through the City, starting at one of three locations: City Hall, the Tinner Hill Historic Site, or Big Chimneys Park, making your way on-foot through stations and signs that include historic markers, community group displays, “Her-Story” stations, and other points of interest.

Retirement Planning Today: An Educational Course This online course, consisting of two 2-hour sessions, is designed to help older adults prepare for retirement. Attendees will learn how to eliminate debt and improve cash flow, properly convert their IRA to a Roth IRA, plan their retirement income, and many other useful financial skills. Tuesday Mar 8 and Tuesday, Mar 15, from 6 — 8 p.m. Advance registration required.

There are three ways to register: make a check payable for $49 to MML Investors Services, LLC (Retirement Course Registration, Attn: J.L. Hicks Financial Group, 1593 Spring Hill Rd., Suite 500E, Vienna, VA 22182); call 703-9352829 and register over the phone; or go online to rsvp.courses (the registration designation for this

seminar is Course ID # YN7PY1).

Conducted over Zoom.

Tough Talks Can Bring Us Closer This facilitated community workshop will explore how to comfortably discuss equity and race issues, facts vs. feelings, misunderstandings, and potential change and is set to take place Saturday, Mar. 26.

Hosted by the City of Falls Church Human Services Advisory Council, one of the main objectives of this workshop is learning how to best move forward toward a more equitable, inclusive future, especially in the wake of recent conflicts over racial and cultural differences. Together as a group, participants will learn and work with the help of a professional facilitator. The facilitator will also strive to help all attendees feel understood and accepted in order to create as conducive a process as possible.

Facilitated by Juliette Shedd, PhD, Associate Dean, Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Associate Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution.

All attendees will be required to

wear masks and maintain a minimum distance of six feet; do not attend if you are experiencing respiratory symptoms. 9:30 a.m.

— 12 p.m. (Meridian High School Library, 121 Mustang Alley Falls Church). Email hhsinfo@fallschurchva.gov for more information.

D.C. Cherry Blossoms Predicted to Bloom Late March The capital’s 3,000-plus cherry blossoms, a famous symbol of spring’s arrival in the nation’s capital, will again be commemorated through the National Cherry Blossom Festival. The Festival, running from Mar. 20 — Apr. 17, will feature events that honor American and Japanese cultures. representing a close bond between the two countries that began with Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki’s gift of the blossom trees in 1912.

Festival goers are recommended to check all event listings at nps. gov/nationalmall for all up-to-date Covid-19 health and safety precautions.

Those wishing to celebrate from afar are welcome to see the blossoms via the live BloomCam at nps.gov/subjects/cherryblossom/ cherry-blossom-cam.htm.

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FALLS CHURCH CALENDAR LOCALEVENTS THURSDAY, MARCH 3 Picasso: Painting the Blue Period (Runs Through Apr. 12). The Phillips Collection's groundbreaking exhibition of Picasso’s monumental “blue period” will provide new insight into the creative process of Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973) at the outset of his artistic career. It is the first exhibition in Washington, D.C. in 25 years to focus on the early works of this 20th century icon. “The blue period” defines the time in Picasso’s life when he was just beginning to define himself on the international stage. (1600 21st Street NW, Washington, DC 20009.) Visit phillipscollection.org for more information.

“Near and Far” Photography Exhibit (Recurring Event Until Mar. 20). Thirty-six photographers will be featured in “Near and Far,” a photography show at the Falls Church Arts gallery from Feb. 5 to Mar. 20. The show celebrates 61 images from photographers who have interpreted the world around them by capturing minute details of macro photography and scenic vistas around the globe and beyond our solar system. All artwork is for sale to the public. Admission is free and the gallery is open Wednesdays Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Masks and social distancing are required. (700 B. W. Broad St., Falls Church). 11 a.m. — 6 p.m.

Foreign Language Movie: Women’s History Month Selection. Sponsored by The Alden Theater, located within the McLean Community Center at 1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean, VA 22101, the Alden’s foreign language movie series is back following its 2020 break. Curated

by Performing Arts Director Sarah Schallern Treff. All screenings are free, but advance registration is

required. Visit mcleancenter.org to register. 1 p.m.

District Trivia. Trivia is back at Clare & Don’s every Thursday night. Bring your friends and show off your trivia chops. (130 N. Washington St., Falls Church).

7 p.m.

DADA 2.0 Art Exhibit at Del Ray Artisans Gallery (Recurring Event Until Feb. 26). The DADA 2.0 art exhibit features art by local artists, expressing modern day political and social discontent through the lens of Dada, the absurdist, post-WWI art movement that sought to reject nationalism and state violence. Capacity is limited to 15 people at a time; masks are required. Free to the public.

Del Ray Artisans gallery in the Colasanto Center. For more information, visit DelRayArtisans.org/ exhibits. (2704 Mount Vernon Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia 22301). Thursday, 12 — 6 p.m., Friday, 12 — 9 p.m., Saturday, 12 — 6 p.m., and Sunday, 12 — 6 p.m.

Walk-in Tech Clinic. A tech tutor will be available every Thursday from morning at the Thomas Jefferson Library Study Room to help out with visitors with their tech issues. Geared towards adults. (1545 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 10 — 11 a.m.

FCNP Featured Event

March Forth March 4th

fresh, local produce, meat, dairy, flowers & plants, honey, and so much more. Please review and abide by the Covid-19 health guidelines. (300 Park Ave., Falls Church). 9 a.m. — 12 p.m.

LGBTQ People of Color Support Group: Virtual Event. This peer support group is designed to be an outlet for LGBTQ+ People of Color to come together and talk about anything affecting them in an environment that strives to be safe and judgment-free. This group meets on the first and third Saturday of the month. Email supportdesk@thedccenter.org for the Zoom link. 1 — 3 p.m.

For more information and events for LGBTQ+ People of Color, visit thedccenter.org/poc or facebook. com/centerpoc.

Paws to Read With Lucy. Read aloud to Lucy, a trained therapy dog, at Thomas Jefferson Library.

Bring your own book or choose a book from the library. Walk-ins welcome. Ages 6 — 12. (1545 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 2 — 3 p.m.

SUNDAY, MARCH 6

Friday Tea Time: Virtual Event.

The D.C. Center invites older LGBTQ+ adults for Friday Tea Time and social hour. Participants can get their beverage of choice and meet with the group online over Zoom. For the meeting link or more information, contact Justin (justin@thedccenter.org). 2 — 3 p.m. Visit thedccenter.org for more information.

NOVA Central Farm Markets.

NOVA Central Farm Market, formerly Mosaic Central Farm Market, is a year-round market located on Beulah Road at the Church of the Holy Redeemer in Vienna, Virginia. The farmers market features fresh local pork, chicken, fish, cheeses, produce, dairy, baked goods, prepared foods to go, eggs, flowers, and ice cream. There will be table seating available, as well as live music, kids’ activities, chef demos, and many other activities.

For more information, visit nova. centralfarmmarkets.com. (543 Beulah Road, Vienna, VA 22180.)

9 a.m. — 1 p.m.

SATURDAY, MARCH 5

MONDAY, MARCH 7

Falls Church Farmers Market.

Every Saturday, visitors can find

Center Aging Coffee Drop-In: Virtual Event. LGBTQ+ older adults

FRIDAY, MARCH 4

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

MARCH FORTH AND DO SOMETHING, also known as March Forth, is an unofficial holiday commemorated each year on March 4, encouraging everyone to lend a helping hand in their communities. From a local vantage point, the Little City is filled with a large scope of events and organizations that foster service and volunteer work in the community.

The Habitat Restoration Team (HRT), founded in 2006, has expanded since its small beginnings and has carried out invasive plant removal as well as the replanting of native species of flora throughout the City. Melissa Teates, a founding member of the Restoration Team and its Volunteer Coordinator, explained that “Cherry Hill [Park] was covered in ivy and Crossman [Park] was covered in bamboo and ivy,” but through the group’s volunteer efforts, the parks now “support many more native plants… that beautify” the area and support “many pollinators, butterflies, and birds.”

Amy Crumpton, Volunteer Chair of the Habitat Restoration Team, added that ivy and invasive vine removal, with English ivy being “the most notorious and perhaps easiest to identify at this time of year,” as well as tree planting through the help of the Neighborhood Tree Program, are some of the top project ideas for the month of March. Residents are also encouraged to remove invasive plants from their own gardens, because, as Melissa noted, “most invasives in the parks came from people’s yards.” For more information on the tree planting program, visit fallschurchva.gov/1575/Neighborhood-TreeProgram; for information on the wide variety of service projects in Falls Church, visit fallschurchva.gov/940/EnvironmentalOpportunities. Crumpton also added that those interested in joining the HRT event mailing list are “welcome” to email her (amy.c.crumpton@gmail.com) or Melissa (meltektites@ outlook.com).

Alison Shearer, Committee Chair of local Boy Scout Troop 895, based out of F.C. Presbyterian Church, has been “involved in several projects” throughout the community, including “placing flags on veterans’ graves at National Memorial Park" and "outdoor cleanup” at the Church and the Scout House. The Troop’s largest project, however, is the annual Scouting for Food, which “occurs in November" and seeks to address "hunger and support local food pantries.” Shearer expressed gratitude to the Little City, saying that “we have very generous neighbors.”

This time around, “Troop 895 and Cub Scout Pack 657 together collected nearly 7,000 pounds of food for Columbia Baptist Church’s food pantry.”

Troop 895 works to "develop leadership and life skills outdoors" and is planning a “conservation project” for this coming spring, as well as a number of upcoming Eagle Scout projects.

For more information on Troop 895, visit bsatroop895.net.

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

and friends are invited to join the D.C. Center every Monday morning for casual conversation and to talk about current issues that may be affecting your life. Email supportdesk@thedccenter.org for the Zoom meeting link. Visit thedccenter.org for more information. 10 a.m. — 12 p.m.

City Council Work Session. City Council Work Sessions are held the first and third Monday of the month, with the exception of August and December when only one meeting is held. These meetings are open to the public and are conducted to allow Council Members to discuss upcoming legislation and policy issues; the public is not generally invited to speak. Those interested are welcome to view the meeting at fallschurchva.gov/ CouncilMeetings or FCCTV (Cox 11, RCN 2, Verizon 35). Video will be available after the meeting both online and on FCCTV. ESOL Conversation Group. Adult participants ages 18 and up are invited to practice their English with the weekly ESOL conversation group. The group meets every Monday evening online through Zoom. Those interested should email Marshall Webster at mwebster@fallschurchva.gov for their Zoom invite. Presented by Mary Riley Styles Public Library volunteers. 7 — 8:30 p.m.

TUESDAY, MARCH 8 Queer Women Working Through Trauma: Closed Membership Group. The D.C. Center invites all who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming for a LGBTQ+ focus group that provides a safe space for individuals processing trauma to discuss and share responses and symptoms as a group, using a variety of therapeutic techniques.

Attendees will learn to manage triggers and painful memories, and other behavioral processing activities. Participants will also focus on the mind-body connection throughout the course of the group, engaging in art and expression activities, mindful meditation/visualization, deep breathing, and other somatic exercises to help process trauma responses while creating accessible coping strategies. Geared towards adults 18 years of age and older. Takes place online via Zoom on Tuesday evenings, from 6 — 7:30 p.m.

Email MicheleJ@thedccenter.org to join the group. Visit thedccen-

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MARCH 3 - 9, 2022 | PAGE 19

ter.org for more information.

LIVEMUSIC THURSDAY, MARCH 3 The 5th Dimension. Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Rd. Vienna). $67. 8 p.m. 703-255-1900.

Thrillbillys. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8 p.m. 703-241-9504.

Ours, Adam Kowalczyk, Black Bird White Sky. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $25. 8 p.m.

703-255-1566.

FRIDAY, MARCH 4 Amanda Wilkins & Sam Stillwell Show. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 4:30 p.m. 703-241-9504.

The Fab Dialtones Do The Fab 4. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15. 8 p.m. 703-2551566.

Shartel & Hume Band. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8:30 p.m. 703-2419504.

Saved by the 90’s: A Party with the Bayside Tigers. The State Theatre (220 N Washington St., Falls Church). $20. 9 p.m. 703237-0300.

Herb & Hansen. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church).

9:30 p.m. 703-237-8333.

SATURDAY, MARCH 5 Honky Tonk Cassanovas. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 4 p.m. 703-2419504.

An Evening with Kronedge II with Special Guests Anila Chowdhury, Kimberly Shires, Kurt Hagemann.

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $20. 7 p.m. 703-2551566.

Jimi Smooth & The Hit Time. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8:30 p.m. 703-2419504.

Tyler Goldstein. Dogwood Tavern (132 W. Broad St., Falls Church).

9:30 p.m. 703-237-8333.

SUNDAY, MARCH 6 Michelle Swain & Cherith Show.

JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington

THERE ARE A LOT OF COMMUNITY SERVICE OUTLETS IN THE LITTLE CITY, with invasive plant removal outings like the ones that took place in Cherry Hill Park and along Cavalier Trail, organized by the Falls Church Habitat Restoration Team (previous page's picture, courtesy: Melissa Teates).

There are also many public service organizations right here in the City, like Boy Scout Troop 895, shown here during a recent food drive. Local Cub Scout Pack 657 also participates in Scouting for Food and many other yearly community service projects. (Photo: Courtesy Alison Shearer.)

Blvd., Falls Church). 4 p.m. 703241-9504.

Screaming Orphans. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $20. 7 p.m. 703-255-1566.

Wolf Blues Jam. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 8 p.m. 703-241-9504.

MONDAY, MARCH 7 Tom Saputo & Friends. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 7:30 p.m. 703-2419504.

Gemini with Special Guest Apathi. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $5. 7:30 p.m. 703255-1566.

TUESDAY, MARCH 8 Crazy After Midnight Open Mic. JV’s Restaurant (6666 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church). 7:30 p.m.

703-241-9504.

Bachelor Boys Band Live and in Concert. Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). 8 p.m.

703-255-1566.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9 The Ben Patterson Group.

Jammin’ Java (227 Maple Ave. E, Vienna). $15. 7 p.m. 703-2551566.

Jim Brickman. Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Rd. Vienna). $37. 8 p.m. 703255-1900.

THEATER&ARTS THURSDAY, MARCH 3 Transient: Impermanent Paintings (Final Weekend, Closes Mar. 6). This groundbreaking exhibition, originally composed as a live performance, presents a series of audiovisual paintings created by the artist in concert with generative algorithms. Employing projected, large scale, hyperrealistic digital brushstrokes that correspond with the music, this presentation highlights complex, polyphonic synthetic landscapes for a unique live experience.

Monday — Thursday, 12 — 8 p.m.; Friday — Sunday, 10 a.m.

— 10 p.m. For information and tickets, visit artechouse.com/location/dc/. (1238 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20024.)

Girls of Madison Street (Running Through Mar. 6). A tight-knit family of African American sisters confronts hidden truths and well-kept secrets as they come together for their mother's funeral. Conflicts emerge, tensions flare, but they soon learn that the bonds of sisterhood know no bounds. A "Bold New Works for Intimate Stages" premiere from Helen Hayes

Award-winning writer, director, and singer Iyona Blake, presented at Creative Cauldron. Please note: All patrons must wear masks.

Social distancing between parties and proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test within 24 hours of the performance is required for everyone ages 5 and above. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased online at creativecauldron.org/girls-of-madison-street. html. Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Sundays. (410 S. Maple St., Falls Church). 703-436-9948.

Daphne's Dive (Running through Mar. 20). A tribute to found family focusing on a neighborhood watering hole run by the warm and enterprising Daphne. Her north Philly bar becomes home for a disparate band of society’s outsiders, among them: an offbeat artist, an eccentric activist, an ambitious businessman, a retired biker, an abandoned teenager, and Daphne’s own vivacious sister. Over the course of nearly twenty years, they drink, dance, rejoice, and grieve together in a captivating weave of interconnection. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Quiara Alegría Hudes. Tickets can be purchased online through sigtheatre.org/ events/202122/daphnes-dive/.

(4200 Campbell Ave, Arlington, Virginia 22206.)

PAGE 20 | MARCH 3 - 9, 2022

PUBLIC NOTICE

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING CITY COUNCIL CITY OF FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA The ordinance referenced below was given first reading on February 14, 2022. A public hearing, second reading, and final City Council action is scheduled for Monday, March 14, 2022 at 7:30 p.m., or as soon thereafter as the matters may be heard.

(TO22-02) ORDINANCE TO APPROVE CONVEYANCE OF PHASE I OF THE 9.78 ACRE HIGH SCHOOL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PARCEL TO THE FALLS CHURCH ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY AND THE CONDOMINIUM DEVELOPER, IN ORDER THAT THE PROPERTY CONVEYANCES CONTEMPLATED IN THE COMPREHENSIVE AGREEMENT CAN BE IMPLEMENTED Public hearings are scheduled be held in City Council Chambers, City Hall, 300 Park Ave., Falls Church, VA. The public may sign up at the meeting or sign up to speak remotely at www.fallschurchva.gov/PublicComment before noon on the day of the meeting. Written public hearing comments may be sent until noon on the day of the meeting to cityclerk@ fallschurchva.gov.

For copies of legislation, contact the City Clerk’s office at 703-248-5014 or cityclerk@ fallschurchva.gov. The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability, call 703-248-5014 (TTY 711).

CELESTE HEATH, CITY CLERK Volunteers who live in the City of Falls Church are needed to serve on the boards and commissions listed below. Contact the City Clerk’s Office (703-248-5014, cityclerk@fallschurchva.gov, or www.fallschurchva.gov/BC) for an application form or more information.

Positions advertised for more than one month may be filled during each subsequent month.

Architectural Advisory Board Board of Equalization Board of Zoning Appeals (Alternate) City Employee Review Board Environmental Sustainability Council Public Utilities Commission Recreation and Parks Advisory Board Retirement Board Urban Forestry Commission Regional Boards/Commissions Long Term Care Coordinating Council Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Commission

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

MARCH 3 - 9, 2022 | PAGE 21

PUZZLE NO. 124

22. Hula-Hoop’s 39. Naughty child site 41. Andean animal 23. Release 43. Serpents 25. Dwelling 27. Like a jug, e.g. 44. Gather 29. Wall hanging 45. Sugar source 47. Sitting above 30. Is situated 50. Long fish 31. Botches 52. Flirt with 34. Relies 53. Have title to 37. Rubbed out

’s s

by ge oup of er or to be

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STRANGE BREW

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Copyright © 2022, Penny Press

ACROSS 33. Brick house 1. Ship defector 35. Balloon input 4. Herring’s kin 36. Navigated 8. Graceful bird 38. More mature 12. Past 40. Fend off 13. Music system: 42. GI’s supper hyph.

43. Covered 14. Evergreen passageway 15. Hair cream 46. Licks 16. Carney et al. 48. Oceans 17. Tiny pests 49. Orderly 18. Border 51. “Tea for 20. Admission slip ____” 22. Savior 54. Plate of glass 24. Gravy 55. Dealer’s vehicle 26. Portrayal 56. Line of seats 28. Brush part 57. Ran 32. Orchestra ____ 58. Hit

59. Mate of hither DOWN 1. Scrap of cloth 2. Iron or Stone ANSWER TO PUZZLE NO. 124 3. Put up with 4. Kind of carpet 5. Takes on 6. Foreand-____ 7. Bother 8. Gaps 9. Blink of one eye 10. Add a share 11. Robin’s roost 19. Pug or collie CROSSWORD PUZZLE ANSWERS 21. Frostier USE AMERICAN SPELLING

SPORTS QUIZ

By Ryan A. Berenz 1. Name the World Golf Hall of Famer, known as the “Queen of American Golf,” who won six U.S. Women’s Amateur Championships from 1922-35?

PUZZLE NO. 126 22. Rude look

40. Young’s

2. Pitcher Carl Erskine threw two no-hitters and won a World23.

Series during the 1950s as a member of opposite Require what team?

25. Undesirable 41. “The Sun plants

____ Rises”

t of

42. Coil 28. Rude glance 3. Name the Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver for the Indianapolis Colts who set a record 43. Loafing 29. Chance (since broken) for catches in a single season with 143 in 2002?

knob output uring

Greenball veggie 32. Underground 4. What variation of bowling is similar to ten-pin bowling but has shorter pins, a 48. smaller and bowlprison 49. As well ers rolling three balls per frame?

dora f t l

30. Some resorts 45. Laze around 33. Free time

50. Squirt gun, e.g.

Not pro 5. The boxer known as Kid Gavilan, who held the undisputed36. welterweight title from 1951-54, hailed 51. Shepherd’s 39. Restaurant from what Caribbean nation? charge customer

6. What was the name of the hockey exhibition team formed by Wayne Gretzky during the 1994-95 NHL lockout?

7. What two college football teams played in the Nov. 19, 1966, “Game of the Century” that ended in a 10-10 tie?

Copyright © 2022, Penny Press

31. Santa’s Last Week’s ACROSS DOWN Answers 1. Derby, e.g.

1. Males vehicle 4. “____ a 33. Relay portion 2. Pirate’s yes 1. Luis, with 37 (Max had 34, Joaquin had zero) • 2. Jim “Catfish” Hunter Wonderful 34. Gather a crop 3. Afternoon 3. “Conan the Destroyer” World” gathering• 4. Dominik Hasek 35. Won over 8. Long 4. Halt!

5. Rawlings • 6. Johan ANSWER Cruyff TO PUZZLE NO. 126 37. Time division narrative 5.

Listens 7. The Michigan Wolverines 38. Harsh sound 12. Spud bud 6. Painting or 40. Mine 13. Long-eared photography products animal 7. Sampling 41. Straightens 14. Heroic poem 8. Member of Syndicate, Inc (c)part 2022 King Features 44. Each 15. Harbors Congress 46.

Mine deposit 17. Egg holder 9. Copycats 18. Acorn bearer 47. Current: hyph. 10. Meaning 19. Browns bread 52. Song for one 11. Behaves 21. Roger Moore 53. Film segment 16. Legume 54. Currently role holder 55. Diner sign 24. Fast 20. ____-the26. Iron or Stone 56. British noble wall CROSSWORD PUZZLE ANSWERS 57. Hair tint 27. Surrounds 21. Deep tone USE AMERICAN SPELLING

JOHN DEERING

PAGE 22 | MARCH 3 - 9, 2022

LO CA L

BACK IN THE DAY

FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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25 � 10 Y���� A�� �� ��� N���-P���� Falls Church News-Press Vol. VI, No. 50 • February 27, 1997

Falls Church News-Press Vol. XXI, No. 50 • March 1, 2012

Whittier Vote Is Tabled

Judge Orders Historic Falls Church Keys, $ to Episcopalians By April 30

As expected, the Falls Church City Council voted to put off a decision on the sale of the Whittier site for over a month at its meeting Monday night.

Last ditch efforts to craft an ordinance palatable to the two members of the Council who’d vowed to block the sale drew criticism.

Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows ruled yesterday that the transfer of all property of the Historic Falls Church in the downtown City of Falls Church shall be transferred away from control of the breakaway Anglican congregation to the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia by an April 30, 2012 deadline.

I� M�������: D����� L�� O’R�����

On Sunday, February 27th, 2022, Dennis Lee O’Rourke passed away peacefully in his home surrounded by family. Dennis was born at Fort Belvoir in Alexandria, VA on June 7th, 1949.

His family remained in Alexandria and he graduated from Groveton High School in 1967.

Dennis lived a bountiful life, which included his time in the service after he was drafted into the Army in 1971; he spent 2 years as a Clerk in Germany before returning home.

Dennis worked in the Georgetown Bar scene in the late 70’s/early 80’s at The Crazy Horse.

He then switched to Cable TV and ended his career as a CAD Operator.

In 1992, he married Lorraine Gilley and they moved to Falls Church, Virginia a few years later. The family has remained in Falls Church City where both of his daughters graduated from George Mason High School.

Dennis is survived by his wife, Lorraine, daughters Veronica (Andrew Ryan) and Paula, and many family and friends.

A Celebration of Life gathering will be held on Saturday, March 5 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Everly Funeral Home, 6161 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Capital Caring Health/Hospice or the American Heart Association.

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

Fa l l s C h u r c h Business News & Notes

MARCH 3 - 9, 2022 | PAGE 23

The Bath or Shower You’ve Always Wanted

IN AS LITTLE AS 1 DAY

Falls Church Native Named Semifinalist in Chef Award The James Beard Foundation has announced the semifinalists for 2022 include several in the DC region. Chef Yuan Tang of Rooster & Owl was named in the Best Chef category. Tang grew up in Falls Church and will open a new restaurant, Ellie Bird, in Founder’s Row later this year. He and wife, Carey, will focus on contemporary, casual comfort food with a children’s menu and offer Saturday brunch. This list will be whittled down to finalists on Wednesday, March 16, with winners announced at a Chicago gala on Monday, June 13 for the first time the program has been held since 2019. Rooster & Owl was named as one of five new 2021 winners of a Michelin star.

The 2022 Annual Business and Community Awards Bourbon, Brews and BBQ is the theme for the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce annual awards event on Thursday, March 24, held for the first time in over two years. This is a communitywide celebration of local the businesses and nonprofits that make the city special. All residents and businesses are encouraged to submit nominations for the following awards: Small Business of the Year, Large Business of the Year, Nonprofit of the Year, Company Culture Excellence Award, and the Pillar of the Community Award. The criteria and forms are available at the chamber website: www. fallschurchchamber.org/events and the deadline is March 8. The event will feature food, live entertainment, a silent and live auction, and the announcement of the award winners. The silent auction has begun online and will shift to bid sheets on the evening of the event. Sponsorships and tickets are available now via the website.

City Business Licenses Are Due The deadline for the City of Falls Church Business Licenses was March 1st. If business owners and operators missed this, they should contact the Commissioner of the Revenue Office at (703) 248-5450 or via email at commissioner@fallschurchva.gov. The office is located at 300 Park Avenue, Suite #202W, Falls Church, VA 22046-3301 and open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. If owners can’t make it during normal business hours, a yellow 24/7 City Halls Drop Box is located next to the West wing building entrance.

Update on Transition from DUNS to UEI (SAM.gov) Effective April 4, 2022, the federal government will phase out the use of DUNS numbers and move to a 12-character unique entity identifier (UEI) created in SAM.gov. This transition streamlines SAM. gov registration for new entities and eliminates the need to work through Dun & Bradstreet for ongoing entity management. The VCA deadline to acquire your UEI (through SAM.gov) is June 1, 2022.

Registration is encouaged as soon as possible, and before April 3, 2022. After April 3, 2022, registration may take considerably more time and effort.

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Business Insurance to Protect Yourself and Your Business The Women’s Business Center of Northern Virginia is offering a session on the importance of business insurance. Guest speaker, Rebecca Geller, Esq. of the Geller Law Group, will cover the unexpected costs of running a business, accidents, natural disasters and lawsuits and the insurance options. This will be held virtually on March 17, 3:00 – 4:00 pm and the Webinar link will be provided upon registration. To register & for more information visit www.cbponline.org

The Arc of Northern Virginia’s Corporate & Community Team Challenge The Arc of Northern Virginia’s Corporate and Community Team Challenge is bringing together companies and community to raise funds to sustain and strengthen its vital programs, services, and advocacy for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This year The Arc is returning to an in-person 5K timed run and 2K fun walk on Sunday, May 1. They are keeping the popular Virtual Team Total-Distance Walk to include more opportunities for individual walkers to participate and compete as a team no matter where they live from April 15- 29. For details and registration, visit www.thearcofnova.org.

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ACT NOW TO RECEIVE  Business News & Notes is compiled by Elise Neil Bengtson, Executive Director of the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. She may be emailed at elise@fallschcurchchamber.org.

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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

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