Lucía Driessen, a 19-year-old who grew up in Forest Hills, voted for the first time in the 2020 election. And then she traveled to Georgia with her father Karl to canvass for the Democrats running in the Senate runoff. They took two road trips down to Athens, Georgia in December ahead of the January special […]
Girls on the Run has kept girls running for fun and for their health throughout the pandemic
When we met our neighbor Amanda Marr in 2017, she told us about Girls on the Run-Washington DC, a nonprofit and afterschool program for girls in grades 3 through 5. Marr is still a board member and volunteer, and is still promoting girls running for physical and emotional health. She wrote to tell us that […]
How Northwest Neighbors Village adapted to keep helping neighbors through the pandemic
The new year brought new leadership to the board of Northwest Neighbors Village, an organization that helps people stay in their homes, surrounded and aided by friends and neighbors, as they age. The work became all the more important as the pandemic brought new challenges. We asked NNV’s new president to fill us in. by […]
From double agents to Kermit the Frog: A new book/walking tour guide links local sites to historic events and figures
More than a few of us took up walking the neighborhood last year to get some exercise and pass the time under shutdown orders. Mark Fitzpatrick did more than that. He turned up a number of hidden historical treasures on his walks around Tenleytown, AU Park, Forest Hills, Van Ness and North Cleveland Park. He […]
Meet Your Neighbors, Hanukkah edition: A documentary filmmaker and an author celebrate lesser-known Jewish heroes
by Marlene Berlin Hanukkah, the festival of lights, started last Thursday evening. This holiday commemorates the Maccabees, Jewish heroes, rising up against the army of Antiochus IV to regain control of Jerusalem and their desecrated Temple. So this seems like a good time to tell you about two neighbors who are celebrating unsung Jewish heroes […]
Ward 3 Mutual Aid Network feeds residents, builds bonds between neighbors
by Will Fowler Sharon Moore was deeply concerned when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. A senior with diabetes, she is especially vulnerable to the disease – but it wasn’t the virus that had her worried. The Van Ness resident is one of more than 100,000 in the District who rely on SNAP benefits to keep food […]
Meet Your Neighbors: The “Flower Lady” of Connecticut Avenue
My family knew her first as the “Flower Lady.” That’s what my son, then seven years old, called her. We soon got to know her by her real name, Kathy, as she and her husband Steve started transforming the tree boxes on the 4500 block of Connecticut Avenue into lush and colorful gardens. Before long, […]
Meet Your Neighbors: She’s helping DC become more welcoming to butterflies and bees and other pollinators
Meet Thorne Rankin. She has lived in Forest Hills for 16 years. She is a landscape designer who has worked in the DC area for 40 years. And in 2017, Rankin started a nonprofit called DC Natives to create pollinator gardens across the city. Why did you decide to start this organization? DC Natives was […]
Meet Your Neighbors: The physical therapist who works on the mind-body connection
One of the newest additions to our ever-evolving Van Ness and Forest Hills Covid-19 business directory is physical therapist Gabrielle Czaja, whose office is in The Saratoga at Connecticut Avenue and Brandywine Street. Czaja continues to work with clients needing help with sore muscles and joint pain, but her practice has moved online while we’re […]
Meet Your Neighbors update: March 12 talk explores an 82-year Harvard study of adult development
The talk scheduled for March 12th has been postponed to avoid a gathering that might put anyone at risk of coronavirus. A quarter century ago, David Cohen discovered a Harvard study that began in 1938 and continues to follow its participants and their descendants to this day. “With my lifelong interest in how people shape […]