Artists Open House And Fundraiser For FHC May 18th

Save the date: Sunday, May 18th, 1 to 4 p.m., for Forest Hills artists studio tours!

Forest Hills is home to some remarkable artists. Three of them are opening their homes to us one Sunday afternoon in May.

To raise funds and awareness for the operational support of our award-winning website and community magazine, Forest Hills Connection, the Forest Hills Citizen’s Association and internationally-recognized artist and neighbor Joan Danziger have organized this event for the community. Danziger and fellow artists and neighbors Setsuko Ono and Annette Polan will host studio tours.

Home base will be within easy walking distance of all three, at 4526 30th Street, the home of Marlene Berlin. This is where tour tickets can be picked up and refreshments will be served to supporters throughout the afternoon.

Tickets are $25 dollars. Click here for information on purchasing and making further donations to Forest Hills Connection.

We’d like to do more of these events with more neighborhood artists, so please help us make this a success!

A Personal Message from Marlene Berlin, editor and founder of the Forest Hills Connection:

Where did you get your neighborhood news before Forest Hills Connection? No one else covers Forest Hills and Van Ness in an ongoing and comprehensive way. And we not only report on our community – we want to serve our community. Just one example is the Van Ness retail survey, which took scores of volunteer hours to compile and analyze, and is now being used by the Vision Committee to sell business owners on Van Ness.

Now entering its third year, Forest Hills Connection is the neighborhood’s communication hub. Thoughtful reporting, stories and editorials reveal Forest Hills’ happenings big and small: new businesses, new sidewalks, the Broad Branch Stream daylighting project, nature sightings and funny stories about local pets. In-depth articles feature the professions and passions of our neighbors (like these artists), the hard work of our ANC and its Vision Committee committed to developing a vibrant Van Ness, and so much more.

I remember back to the day when Denise Warner, Dzenita Mehic Saracevic, Marge Rachlin and I sat around my kitchen table discussing what Marge and I had previously brainstormed. We wanted to do a community publication with neighbors as contributing writers about the neighborhood. As we hashed over our ideas the concept of the Forest Hills Connection was born. Jane Solomon put it together in a nutshell: We wanted an electronic community magazine. We went after start-up funding from the Forest Hills Citizens Association, ANC 3F, the DC Humanities Council, and Mary Cheh’s Constituent Fund. David Luria of Washington Photo Safari became a crucial advertiser that first year.

The other piece of putting this together was getting the right partner. I knew just the right person, Tracy Johnke. She had worked with me on Connecticut Avenue Pedestrian Action by keeping track of our almost 100 volunteers and doing the much of the data entry. She also worked in radio and understood media in a way I did not. I could not have been happier when she agreed to sign on to do the more technical side of this venture. And she does so much more, with her keen sense of timing for posting pieces, great layout, deftly editing my work, and crafting creative headlines. We are starting our third year of working together on the Connection, and I cannot imagine a better partner.

As it began its second year, the Connection received city-wide recognition with a Vision Award from the Committee of 100. The Connection has also been linked in the Washington Post online, Greater Greater Washington, and other city blogs. And it has a formal agreement to share pieces with the Current Newspapers.

We have accomplished much on a shoe-string budget. And we do have one – to cover such costs as the web hosting, the technical know-how needed to keep the site up and running, the surveys (via Survey Monkey), and some of the site’s features, such as the events calendar.

We are at a critical juncture. We have used up our start-up funding and have started depending on the reserves of the Forest Hills Citizen Association. We cannot continue to do this.

To move from where we are now to becoming a self-sustaining enterprise, we need the ongoing support of this community through your tax-deductible contributions. Please join me and your neighbors to keep the Connection going and improving.

So please, buy tickets for the Forest Hills Artists Studio Tours on May 18th, come by and say hello, and/or make a contribution.