Category Archives: community

Pine Street Baptist Church Helps The Homeless

Posted on by
Reply

The Religious Herald newspaper has an article on the 160-year old Pine Street Baptist Church’s efforts to help the homeless.

Excerpts:

Home is where your mailbox is and for some homeless residents in Richmond’s historic Oregon Hill neighborhood, that’s now Pine Street Baptist Church.
The recent addition of 50 lockers and 25 mailboxes is about more than a safe place for the homeless to keep belongings and a mailbox with their name on it, said Jennifer Turner, director of the Oregon Hill Baptist Center. It may be the first step in transitioning to a more stable lifestyle.

…

“Over the past couple of years, Pine Street Baptist Church entered a ‘Pursuing Missional Faithfulness’ process to help the church identify who we are in light of where we are, and the theme of hospitality continued to rise up in our gatherings,” said pastor Philip Turner, Jennifer’s husband.

“The homeless population around our church has increased — along with the number of students attending Virginia Commonwealth University,” he said. “The church felt that a ministry of hospitality to both the students and homeless needed to be part of our mission.”

Grace-On-The-Hill

Posted on by
Reply

St. Andrew’s has a fairly new program called Grace-On-The-Hill, “a partnership between St. Andrew’s Church and the Diocese of Virginia that invites young adults to live in community while engaging deeply in the social, relational, economic and ecological regeneration of the Oregon Hill neighborhood and the wider community of Richmond, VA.”

They have a website for it and a blog. Here’s a blog post from last month:

The first couple of weeks of Grace-on-the-Hill, living in Richmond/Oregon Hill, and my work site have been wonderful. Everything is still new, exciting, and just a tiny bit overwhelming. I’m glad that I’m feeling a little more settled. Each day I’m adjusting more and more to my new surroundings.

The spirituality, service, community, and social justice embedded within the Grace-on-the-Hill program are intriguing. I was especially drawn to this program when I learned more about Oregon Hill/Richmond and the work sites. I am so happy to be here! I am excited to be somewhere new, yet not very far away from where I grew up in Maryland. I really like where I live. I appreciate the small town and close-knit feel of Oregon Hill while still being able to walk, bike, or take a bus to most places. I love being able to walk to church and my work site. There are many exciting places to go in Richmond. On Labor Day, Vincent, a friend of his, and I went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. I adore the arts, especially visual arts, and truly enjoyed my visit. We stayed mostly in the abstract art section of the museum. The museum offers much to see and I look forward to going back and exploring different parts of the gallery.

My work site at William Byrd Community House is very rewarding. I yearn to work in social justice and health and am eager to work in areas related to these topics. I have a particular interest in food and nutrition. I often read about such topics for pure enjoyment and recreation. I love how the overarching theme of WBCH is building self-sufficiency. I believe this is the ultimate way of helping and serving people. This agency addresses immediate basic needs and then helps people progress and become self-sufficient. One of these most basic needs reflects my particular area of interest in food and food justice. I consider myself a big advocate for local food for a variety of health, environmental, and social/ community related reasons. I’m excited about being a part of the library/ education-community garden-farmlet-farmer’s market area of the agency. WBCH’s programs connect harmoniously. For example, the onsite farmlet contributes to the agency’s food pantry. I look forward to help further connect more programs of WBCH. The area of WBCH in which I work supports access to fresh, healthy, local food to communities that face barriers to such food. One of our goals is to further connect with communities and address these challenges. So far I have been oriented, attended meetings, collected and organized information, and have helped out at the farmer’s market. Did I mention how excited I am to be working here?! I see my whole experience in Richmond, Grace-on-the-Hill, and William Byrd Community House as a true blessing. I am so grateful to be part of such a supportive community and to be working in areas of my most profound interests.

Theater Controversies Continue: Venture Richmond Main Stage Comparisons

Posted on by
Reply

This weekend Venture Richmond employees and volunteers will be putting together stages for the upcoming Folk Festival. Still looming in the background is the controversy over Venture Richmond’s ‘Tredegar Green’ theater plan. It seems like a good time to present this information from concerned citizen C. Wayne Taylor:

I have an aerial photo that show the Newmarket venue after a festival. People trampled the grass except where it was protected by structures. The stage, control tent, cable runs, and concession tents locations are clearly visible as green areas. I marked the areas that the audience occupied; excluding space for foot traffic.

Then I laid the area over the Venture Richmond (ed.- proposed ‘Tredegar Green’) site. It’s interesting that none of the Newmarket footprint reaches the “upper lawn” of the VR site. Spectators in the upper lawn would be further away from the stage than anyone at the Newmarket venue.

Sq Ft Percent
Newmarket 86,234 100%

Venture Richmond

Lower 34,567 40%

Upper 16,419 19%

TOTAL 50,986 59%

Reduction 35,248 41%

The canal, street, etc. on the Venture Richmond site eliminate 60% of the Newmarket footprint. The upper lawn adds back 19%. That is a net reduction of 41%.

The Venture Richmond venue is very poor and cannot accommodate the crowds experienced on the Newmarket site. I think a main reason Berry (ed.- Jack Berry of Venture Richmond) wants to modify the canal is to increase the lower lawn square footage.

It appears to me that it really does make sense to consider moving the main stage to Brown’s Island and move the two stages on Brown’s Island to the lower lawn and upper lawn. The sizes of the venues would more closely match the sizes of the audiences. The regrading expense would be less. I don’t understand why Berry has rejected that alternative.

3 2012 venture richmond venue2 2012 newmarket venue 21 2012 newmarket venue

As the Folk Festival (Venture Richmond’s propaganda push) gets closer, expect more information and history to be shared on oregonhill.net. It’s important to recognize that Oregon Hill is not against the Folk Festival, but the neighborhood association is strongly against the current ‘Tredegar Green’ plan that Venture Richmond is wrongly insisting on and arrogantly pushing upon our historic neighborhood.

Byrd House Market Today, 3:30 – 7pm

Posted on by
Reply

From email announcement:

More spectacular weather
guarantees that Byrd House Market is a great place to spend the afternoon, or drop by! Pick up a late lunch, supper to go or a quick snack. Time to stock your fresh food pantry or the ingredients for that long anticipated fall stew, autumn roast, October saute? Ever thought about making a surprisingly easy herbed frittatta for the next brisk morning, or simple end-of-summer tossed salads with a warm dressing… How about the simple joy of crisp warm cinnamon toast from freshly baked bread served with with steamed fresh whole milk, or a peach smoothie made with fresh, pasteurized yogurt?

Is there anything better than good food?
No, but a good intern comes mighty close. Teresa Willoughby is working with BHM from September 2013 through June 2014 – interning with the Library Programs and Byrd House Market at WBCH through St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church Grace on the Hill service program. She has a B.S. in Public Health with a particular passion for promoting community health through good nutrition, specifically local, seasonal, fresh foods. If you haven’t met her, she’s the girl taking market stats and learning quickly to be a great market assistant. Say hi and welcome!

Mark Your Calendars!
National Food Day is Coming and Byrd House Market is on the Agenda! Tuesday, Oct. 22 join us with partners in the VCU Wellness Resource Center and the Healthy Community Action Team. $10 Student Boxes (with Student ID), Raffles, Music and more!

Location & Location
Many of our produce and specialty food producers vend at the Farmers Market @ St. Stephen’s Church on Saturday mornings, so if you missed something there you can probably find it here, and vice verse of course!

Support your local farmers and food producers! Buy Fresh and Buy Local! Buy Byrd House Market!
________________

Ana Edwards, Manager
Byrd House Market & Library Programs
Grace Arents Library & Education Center
William Byrd Community House
www.wbch.org / 804.643.2717 ext.306

The People’s Library: Where Your History Becomes Part of the Main Library’s Permanent Collection

Posted on by
Reply

The Main branch of Richmond Public Library continues to reach out to the surrounding community. PLease consider this event on September 20.

From FaceBook event page:

After many months of workshops and endless help and support from the Main Branch of the Richmond Public Library (especially the incredible teens!) the People’s Library is opening to the public! What does that mean? It means you can check out one of our homemade books, write your history in it and return it to the library to be included in their permanent collection! It’s all free, all you need is a library card. But come out for the opening for food, friends, and brainstorming sessions on how to allow the project to continually to evolve and expand!

The People’s Library is a highly collaborative, sustainable and interactive public art project. Since February 2013 community members have been working together to design and build a library authored by the community. During a series of workshops participants transformed discarded books into hundreds of blank books for anyone to write their histories in. Every book will be included in the library’s permanent collection at Main.

On September 20th, from 5-7:30 at the Main Branch of the Richmond Public Library, the blank books will be available for any community member with a library card to check out and take with them. The books can then be filled with histories, photos, drawings, anything. Once they checked back they’ll become part of the Main Branch of the Richmond Public Library’s permanent collection. The books can then be checked out by anyone in the community creating a real and symbolic meeting place for our diverse state.