Category Archives: community

It’s Almost Halloween!

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The 10th Annual Halloween Parade is around the corner, October 31st on Halloween Proper, 7pm, from the Southwest corner of Monroe Park, we will gather for A Funeral March for Individual and Collective Depression!

We confront the imbalance within ourselves both solitary and as a lattice of individuals as we strive to be a reflection of our purist intention….while having fun! We will look at our relationship with nature, and with massive puppets we will come together to celebrate community and spontaneity All the Saints-style with ruckus and puppets in the streets of Oregon Hill. Our Halloween parade is an ancient form of huge pageant style puppetry with the Dixieland tribute to modern day New Orleans style funeral marches. We are blessed to have a community that welcomes such wildness because wildness is necessary!

Join us for 10 years of All the Saints’ Halloween Parade, this years parade will include members from NoBS Brass Band, stilt walkers, Zombie String Band, 15foot saints style matroyshka-madonnas, 5 person buffallos, moose, a celestial tribute party, honoring the moon and the stars as well as mother earth, celebrating migration with tribute refugee puppets. “We will use our bones and blood to end your fracking flood” no pipeline boat will join us to speak up on behalf of mama earth. And of course we will have zombies, gouls, pumpkins, and whatever costume you show up in! This parade relies on your participation, so show up ready to carry puppets, dressed and willing for to do just about anything for Halloween fun!

This year’s parade theme was the outcome of grief and reflection in honoring the tragic and true death of All the Saints member and friend, Cayman Mooney. We will memorialize Cayman with a huge puppet of him with his accordion, and if you knew and played music with him please join us in marching with his puppet in remembrance, to celebrate his life and learn camaraderie and compassion from his death. I believe depression is caused by an imbalance between nature and true-selves, lets slow life down and remember Old World Traditions, and go Basic. Stars, Moon, and Sun. On All Hallows Eve when the walls between us and the spirit world are most translucent we welcome Cayman and all that we have lost. In remembering Cayman, I think of his music. Let us play music everyday, and seize opportunities to be wild, make love, and be joyous and kind! Congrats to us all on 10 years of Richmond’s Halloween Parade!

Thank you all,
Lily Lamberta
All the Saints Theater Company

We can’t wait to see you all in continuing this community tradition!

Dress up and parade with us!

Because it’s Saturday night and its the 10th anniversary, Oregon Hill residents should expect major crowds and traffic for this event. Still, hopefully there will be time and room for children’s trick-or-treating beforehand.

I know the new David will be watching the festivities..

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Richmond Community Solar Co-op

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The Richmond Community Solar Co-op had an info session last night at Henrico County’s Tuckahoe Library.
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Here is the basic information:

Want to Go Solar on Your Home or Business in the greater Richmond area? Join the Richmond Community Solar Co-op

Neighbors in Richmond have formed a solar co-op to make going solar easier and cheaper. Co-op members use their group buying power to get a discount and work with the support of the non-profit VA SUN as they go solar. VA SUN brought the first Solarize program to Virginia and has helped hundreds of homeowners go solar in the Commonwealth.

Based on the same principle as buying in bulk, co-op members purchase solar systems together to save money and share knowledge. The group uses a competitive bidding process to select a single company that will install systems on all of the participating homes. Each participant signs his or her own contract with the installer, but everyone gets the bulk discount.

By going solar as a group we can save up to 20% off the cost of a solar system. You’ll also have the support of the group instead of navigating an often-complicated process alone. VA SUN is supporting the group effort.

Contact: Aaron Sutch, VA SUN Program Manager (aaron@vasun.org)

Community Partner: Sekar Veerapan (smvee@hotmail.com)

YAVA Author Celebration Wednesday At Main Library

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The Richmond Public Library is hosting 14 Virginia authors of books for children and young adults at its YAVA Book & Author Party from 6:00 to 8:30 pm on Wednesday, October 21, at the Richmond Main Library (101 E. Franklin Street).
The event is FREE to the public and will feature book sales and signings, raffles, and music by the Hanover High School jazz band. The authors are Gigi Amateau, Tom Angleberger, Cece Bell, Anne Blankman, Bill Blume, Martina Boone, Lana Krumwiede, Sarah McGuire, Jodi Meadows, Sara Raasch, Madelyn Rosenberg, Wendy Shang, Kat Spears and Steve Watkins.

Folk Festival and a (Deliberately) Missed Opportunity

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For eleven years now I have enjoyed attending the annual Folk Festival held on Richmond’s riverfront, a short walk from the neighborhood. This year was no exception. I caught such great acts as the Cambodian American Heritage Dance Troupe, The Campbell Brothers, Feedel Band, Grupo Rebolu’, Zedashe, and others. For me the highlight was two sets of wonderfully cosmic jazz by the Sun Ra Arkestra. Sure, I could nitpick, but overall the Folk Festival Committee continues doing an excellent job with programming the festival. Having dabbled in music booking and management, and having volunteered for the Folk Festival in the past, I have some idea of the challenges they face.
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This past weekend was blessed with great weather and the crowds were there. There were still a few issues with traffic and jackasses parking illegally in the neighborhood, but it was better than some previous experiences with riverfront events. Hopefully these issues can be negotiated in a respectful manner so that they are not issues in the future.
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That said, a huge opportunity was missed to highlight one of Richmond’s most important historical resources. I am, of course, talking about the James River and Kanawha Canal, designed in part by George Washington, built with slave labor, and the biggest and most significant public project in Virginia’s antebellum period. Among other common sense proposals for the new “Tredegar Green” area, neighbors have repeatedly requested a sign or historic marker west of Tredegar Iron Works for the Canal, listed since 1971 on the National Register of Historic Places. How many of the estimated 200,000 or so festival attendees knew about the historic Canal they were walking by? Venture Richmond left it without any sign and treated it like just a regular drainage ditch.
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How many of the artists who performed on the ‘VCU Health stage’, set up IN THE CANAL, knew the historic significance?
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It was a bit surreal to watch the Irish group The Alt perform on this site where Irish immigrants had toiled and died, without any acknowledgement by the festival. A simple sign, as requested, would have worked.

At times, Richmond leaders and academics talk about how Richmond history is so much more than the Civil War, and how more pre-Civil War accomplishments and stories need to be told. Despite all this talk, Richmond’s leaders often do not live up to their promises in this regard. (Something the late Mark Brady and many others have experienced). Sometimes they are more interested in destroying these important legacies, sometimes to the point that they jeopardize future opportunities.

The Folk Festival is great at sharing and presenting stories of people from all around the world (and we all hope it continues to do so), but that is why it is so incredibly disturbing when Venture Richmond ignores and diminishes our own.

Harassment At Idlewood and Belvidere

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Richmond Times Dispatch column receives letter about the homeless people who hang out at the crossing of Byrd (Idlewood)and Belvedere streets.

They harass me by yelling expletives and walking menacingly toward me (they never ask for money — it’s mostly vulgar catcalls), and I started feeling so unsafe that I modified my route (adding about 10 minutes to my commute) so I could avoid that corner.

The columnist contacted the police about the situation.

Lepley also said that anyone can call the nonemergency number at (804) 646-5100 to report harassment and ask for the sector lieutenant to call back regarding the issue.
One more salient point from the reader’s email:
“What can I do about this issue? I feel really sorry for them, but I just don’t feel safe and I would like to be able to walk to work without fear of facing these really scary situations every morning,” she wrote.

Richmond Folk Festival/Richmond Zine Festival/Richmond Record Fair

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Of course, for anyone who does not already know, this is the weekend of the Richmond Folk Festival. I am always surprised by how many locals still do not understand that this is not folk rock as in Bob Dylan, but folk musics and traditions of all types from all over the world. It’s an incredible chance to grow your musical tastes and it happens right next to Oregon Hill. Yes, there are community concerns about how Venture Richmond is using the Folk Festival to push inappropriate riverfront development, but that should not stop people from enjoying what the festival itself has to offer.

And that’s not all that’s happening this weekend…Whurk Magazine, ‘Virginia Cultural Review’, has a nice article on the Richmond Zine Festival, which takes place this Saturday at the Main Public Library, Oregon Hill’s City public library branch. (One footnote- although the festival is billed as the ninth annual one, Throttle Magazine started and sponsored a few earlier renditions of the Richmond Zine Festival years earlier)
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If that is not enough, Oregon Hill’s Vinyl Conflict record store is co-sponsoring the Richmond Record Fair at Hardywood Brewery on Sunday. The description has “20+ tables spanning all genre, tones, culture, subgenre, sub-sub-genre, feedback, texture, vibrations and libations”. It includes a concert by local band The Milkstains.
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Here’s hoping that everyone has a great weekend.

“John Moeser — Provocative Peacemaker”

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The Richmond Peace Education Center has a profile on Professor John Moeser as 2015 PeaceMaker of the Year, in advance of their annual dinner and auction.

Moeser held his ground at VCU but soon upset the University’s leadership when the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, which he helped organize, publicly opposed VCU’s plans to extend the campus into Oregon Hill.
“Word got back that the President, in a conversation with the Provost, questioned whether the university really needed an Urban Studies Department. I thought it was our finest hour.”

WBCH No More

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Confirming what Oregon Hill residents have known for a while, the Times Dispatch has an article on the William Byrd Community House shutting down.

Some excerpts:

The William Byrd Community House, an influential force for early childhood education and helping low-income families, is in the process of shutting down, according to the organization’s former executive director.
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The nonprofit’s board of directors has not met to vote for its dissolution, but former executive director Shelia Givens said her last day was Friday.
“It’s pretty much inevitable,” Givens said of its closing.
After years of financial woes brought on by compounding debts and dwindling contributions and grants, the early-education center that received a rare and sought-after four-star rating from Virginia Star Quality Initiative furloughed most of its staff last month and shut down its preschool program.
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The nonprofit’s origins trace to the early 1900s when a group of nurses funded by philanthropist Grace Arents, the niece of Lewis Ginter, banded with social workers to provide cooking, hygiene and infant-care classes and community recreation. The building, constructed in 1903, was Richmond’s first free library before it became the William Byrd Community House to serve poor residents.
In addition to the early childhood education center, the nonprofit provided mortgage, rent and utility assistance to low-income families in the area as well as a food pantry and weekly farmers market that accepted SNAP benefits.

The Byrd House Market will officially end Oct. 27, but in speaking to the vendors, it sounds like ‘the renegade market’ can happen till the end of December. After that, ‘all promises are off’.

What’s even more worrisome is that the St. Andrew’s Association has not announced future plans for the building and grounds. There have been some rumors of a St. Andrew’s Middle School or longterm plans for elderly housing.