Alexandria Food Day is October 16

Here is how you can get involved:  

Attend a community discussion on food equity in Alexandria. Thediscussion will take place at Washington Street United Methodist Church at7 pm. It will be moderated by Vice Mayor Elizabeth Bennett-Parker. 
https://hungerfreealexandria.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5227a0d1c991ddbdf9954a974&id=2913396acf&e=8d91f61f42


Volunteer at Dale Street Community Garden. Help them get ready for
the winter season from 12 - 1 pm. 
RSVP here.
https://hungerfreealexandria.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5227a0d1c991ddbdf9954a974&id=0d2272ef46&e=8d91f61f42


Volunteer with ALIVE! Help "Fill the ALIVE! Truck" outside of City
Hall from 9 am - 3 pm. 
RSVP here
https://hungerfreealexandria.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5227a0d1c991ddbdf9954a974&id=4737d1dc21&e=8d91f61f42


Drop off food donations* to the ALIVE! truck outside of City Hall any
time from 9 am - 3 pm.
Click for More Info!
<https://hungerfreealexandria.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5227a0d1c991ddbdf9954a974&id=a78c2f409e&e=8d91f61f42>

School Safety Information from Samuel Tucker Elementary School

School Safety Information from Mr. Paschal   As is our custom at the beginning of each school year, we will begin practicing the school safety drills required of all schools by the Commonwealth of Virginia. We plan to host our first fire drill by the end of the first week of school and will have a second one by the end of the month. Also this week teachers will be implementing the first ALiCE lesson (reading the book) and by the middle of next week will have practiced evacuating to their classroom's designated safe space outside of the building. Although the recent events this past weekend are a reminder of the need for preparing our students for emergency situations, our upcoming drills reflect our common practice of keeping kids safe and prepared at all times. For families new to Tucker, we hope that you can join us at 6:30 PM on Monday, August 19 for our annual ALICE Parent Presentation. Below is the letter that will be sent home with your child today.

August 5th, 2019 Dear Samuel Tucker Elementary Families, As you may know, Alexandria City Public Schools, along with community partners including the Alexandria Police Department, has begun implementing significant changes to our practiced response to physical threats within a school building. The ACPS team is developing, educating and training staff and all students, in an age-appropriate fashion, on how to respond and prepare for the unlikely occurrence of an intruder (someone trying to hurt students and staff) at school.  Please know that we are taking into account developmental appropriateness and levels of learning abilities as lessons are being developed. The new program we are adopting is called Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate, commonly referred to as ALICE. This process provides appropriate action steps for students and staff to take in order to stay safe in the event of an active shooter or active threat in the school building or on campus. The main objective of this program is to provide students and staff with OPTIONS to increase their chance of survival during an intruder emergency. The ALICE initiative is recognized across the country as an additional component to the traditional “lockdown” response. Alexandria City Public Schools administrators, teachers and staff began ALICE training in the summer of 2017. Tucker staff members have all completed both online and practical training with our instructors during the school year prior to taking the next steps with students. It is now time to educate and train our students by engaging in age-appropriate lessons and practicing age-appropriate scenarios, which will lead to a practical understanding of the safety options provided by ALICE. Over the next couple of weeks our students will participate in overview lessons on the major components of ALICE taught by their classroom teachers and members of our school ALICE Instructor Team.  At the elementary level, our primary focus for students will be on EVACUATION if there were to be an active shooter or threat inside the building. Students will learn the different exits of the building, how to safely run to our safe places, and actions they can take to keep our school safer (such as not opening exterior doors to known or unknown adults). A  Parent Information meeting will be held on Monday, August 19th from 6:30-8:00.  I hope that you can join us! Just as routine fire drills have played an important role in school safety, it is our hope that these new strategies will become engrained in a similar fashion to ensure that our students are safe at school each and every day. As always, please do not hesitate to contact me directly with any questions regarding this topic. Thank you for your ongoing support. Sincerely, Rene Paschal

November 5th General Election Information

The November 5 ballot in Alexandria includes contests for Virginia State Senate (30th, 35th or 39th District) and House of Delegates (45th or 46th District) as well as Alexandria Clerk of Court. 

All regular polling places will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

• Virginia State Senate (30th, 35th, or 39th District)
• Virginia House of Delegates (45th or 46th District)
• Alexandria Clerk of Court (citywide)

Your ballot will depend on your home address and assigned precinct.

Find your polling place here: 
https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/elections/2019PrecinctList.pdf

Each of the four sample ballots in the link below includes a list of associated precincts. But if you aren't
sure of your precinct name, you will also find a precinct map and a list of precinct addresses and ballot
styles.
alexandriava.gov/Elections

Sample Ballots for the City of Alexandria’s November 5 General Election are now available online. The ballot includes choices for:

McCafe for a Cause

On Mondays in June you can support the Alexandria Domestic Violence Program (DVP).

Each Monday during the month of June, McDonald's will donate a portion of proceeds from all McCafé products sold at MCD Mateos in Alexandria. Purchase one of the following products to support DVP:

Fruit Smoothies

Shakes

Frappés

Lattes

Cappuccinos

Hot Chocolates

Mochas

Macchiatos

Mondays in June

7 a.m. - 7 p.m.

MCD Mateos (North Henry McDonald’s)

1000 North Henry Street

Alexandria, VA 22314

For more information about the Alexandria Domestic Violence Program, visit alexandriava.gov/DomesticViolence.

Seminary Road Survey

Via Seminary Hill Association 

As many of you are aware, on May 30th, the city's Transportation and Environmental Services staff presented its proposed re-design of Seminary Road. Seminary Hill Association had put forward a plan we termed Alternative 4, which maintained 4 lanes of car travel, but provided safety improvements including: reducing the width of those 4 lanes to slow speed, creating light-activated crosswalks for pedestrians, providing a 3' buffer on each side of the roadway, and calling for increased speed enforcement along Seminary Road. The Seminary Hill board voted overwhelmingly for this option, and a large majority of our residents have expressed support for this alternative. Unfortunately, city staff did not choose to consider our proposal, but instead created what they term a "hybrid" approach combining 2 of their own proposals to alter the car travel lanes.

The city's proposal narrows the eastbound car travel lanes from 2 lanes to 1 lane between St. Stephens Road and Zabriskie Lane - a stretch of just 4/10ths of a mile - before returning the 2nd car travel lane to approach the intersection at Quaker Lane. In this stretch of roadway, they propose to create an 8' "shared buffer" space on the sides of the road, create pedestrian crosswalks with concrete"refuge" islands in the middle of the roadway, and alter the signal pattern at the intersection of Quaker Lane. At this intersection, the right hand lane would become right turn only onto Quaker, but right turn on red would be prohibited. The left lane would become left turn and through traffic, which means that cars going straight onto Janneys Lane would have to wait behind cars seeking to turn left onto Quaker Lane. You can view the full details of this plan at this website: www.alexandriava.gov/103393.

The city is now accepting comments on their proposal. Please take a few minutes and participate in the survey so your voice can be heard. You can access the survey at: https://www.research.net/r/AlexandriaVA-SeminaryRdPublicComment. This survey will close on June 10th, so please register your comments before that deadline.

In addition, there is another online survey that was created by residents in favor of maintaining the 4 car travel lanes, as the SHA position advocates Over 1200 residents have signed that petition. If you wish to learn more about this petition, please go to this link: https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/central-alexandria-citizens-petition.

The city's proposal for Seminary Road will go before the Traffic and Parking Board on Monday, June 24th at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall. Please consider attending this meeting. You can fill out a form that night to speak to the board on this matter. Following the Traffic and Parking Board's decision, the matter will come before City Council in Spetember. That will be the final opportunity to let our elected officials know your views.

Community Alert

FROM BEVERLEY HILLS NEIGHBORHOOD LISTSERVE 

posted at 7:30 am, 5/29.  

I wanted to alert the community about an incident that happened on our street (Dogwood Drive) yesterday evening. My husband saw a man in a white windowless cargo van on the other side of the street who had his phone held up horizontally toward our 5-year-old daughter and a friend playing in the kiddie pool. My husband bolted up, and once the man saw my husband he put his phone to his ear, then pulled away. The man was white, with a bald/shaved head.

Commuting Options for Metro Shutdown

FROM SLUGLINES.com


In preparation for the metro shutdown, there are new sluglines organized at the following locations.
1) Francoina-Springfield Metro (K&R waiting area), https://goo.gl/maps/ueBBnCagxwPt1Xhh8 … 2) Van Dorn Metro (Past the Blue Line Shuttle), https://goo.gl/maps/aEiuHoDBPDbqXoRaA … 3) Landmark Mall (Opposite to the Bus Shelter) https://goo.gl/maps/L5MtxpVhmw1E7vxx8 … To coordinate rides join https://www.facebook.com/groups/dcsluglines/ … For slugging information during metro shutdown check http://sluglines.com/metroshutdown/ 

Metro Blue and Yellow Lines Close for Reconstruction: Starting Saturday, May 25th, the six BLUE and YELLOW line stations South of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport will be closed for full platform reconstruction and major station improvements.To expedite construction and minimize customer inconvenience, the following stations will remain closed through Sunday, September 8th, 2019.

- Braddock Rd
- King St-Old Town
- Eisenhower Ave
- Huntington
- Van Dorn St
- Franconia-Springfield

The station closures are part of Metro's three-year Platform Improvement Project that will completely reconstruct the outdoor platforms at 20 Metrorail stations, making platforms safer and more accessible for customers with disabilities, while also addressing safety concerns and longstanding structural issues. For more details regarding this closure please go to https://wmata.com/service/rail/PlatformProject/

The Alexandria Police Youth Camp (APYC)

The Police Youth Camp in Kilmarnock, Virginia hosts seven week-long residential camp sessions and has 100 spots remaining for Alexandria residents, aged 9 - 15, plus, two weeks for 16 year-old Counselors-in-Training.

Cost: $530 a week but we have scholarship funds available. 

When: Camp Runs from Sunday to Friday. The first week is June 23 - 28. The last week is Aug 4-9. Campers typically attend only one week.

What: The APYC has been around since 1947. Many people call us “police camp” but the activities are the same as any other overnight resident camp (boating, zip line, swimming, fishing, climbing wall, etc).

Application Process: The application for camp can be found here: www.AlexPYC.org. Once completed, a YMCA staff member will contact the parent to determine what week the child can attend and complete any additional paperwork. There is no paperwork to complete to receive scholarship funds; we work on an honesty policy.

 

Transportation: ACPS provides a bus to and from camp, though parents are welcome to drop the child off on the property. It is located in Kilmarnok VA, about 2.5-3 hours away from Alexandria. There is no fee to take the bus.

Video of Camp: To give you a better idea of what camp includes, there is a video here: www.AlexPYC.org.

TC Lacrosse Mulch Sale

TC Williams Lacrosse MULCH SALE 2019


T. C. Williams Lacrosse
MULCH SALE

Saturday, March 16, 2019 - 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

George Washington Middle School

1005 Mt. Vernon Ave

40 lb. bags – Only $5.00 each

for 20+ bags ($6 each for fewer than 20 bags)

3 cubic feet of premium, organic, shredded hardwood mulch

Delivery orders for 15 or more bags: can be delivered & unloaded for an additional fee of $30 to your home or business, Saturday, March 16th. Check delivery on form below. Alexandria City only.

Pick-up orders: come to the parking lot of George Washington Middle School on Saturday, March 16th between 8 a.m. & 4 p.m. Mulch bags will be loaded into your vehicle or trailer.

Order form at https://goo.gl/forms/dSibjVKjGbOxxoLS2
or contact tcwlaxboosters@gmail.com

To place an order: complete and send us the form below by Monday, March 11, 2019 or use the online order form<https://goo.gl/forms/ep8tsJm5XthinuB03>. Payment: Pay with PayPAL, Venmo or mail a check.

Pay by Check: make payable to “TC Williams Lacrosse Boosters”, mail to c/o David Andersen,

4018 Ellicott St., Alexandria, VA 22304.

Pay by PayPal

1. Log in to your PayPal account

2. Pay or Send Money

3. Send money to friends and family

4. Enter email: tcwlaxboosters@gmail.com

5. Enter the amount

PAY with Venmo

1. Log into Venmo

2. Search for @TCWilliams-Lacrosse

3. Enter the total amount

4. In the notes, put your name and number of bags

Email tcwlaxboosters@gmail.com<mailto:tcwlaxboosters@gmail.com> with questions.

Retain the top portion of this form as a reminder of the pick-up/delivery date! Thanks for your order and support!

…………………………………………………………………………………………………...................

Name: ________________________________ Mulch Day Phone Number: ________________

Address: _______________________________ Zip Code___________

E-Mail: _______________________________________________________

If over 20 bags: # bags _____ X $5.00 = $ ____________

If fewer than 20 bags: # bags _____ X $6.00 = $ ____________

Plus Delivery (optional) @ $30.00 = $ ____________

Donation (optional) $ ____________

Total Amount Enclosed: $ ____________

Please specify delivery location (driveway, side yard, etc.):

Last Saturday Food Distribution for ALIVE! Food Program

Open to all City of Alexandria residents, ALIVE! Food Program provides free distribution of five-day supplies of meat, fresh produce, eggs and non-perishable food items (Please bring proof of City of Alexandria residency).

Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019  |  8:30 to 11:30 a.m.

Last Saturday Locations:

John Adams Elementary School

5651 Rayburn Ave., Alexandria

“Chick” Armstrong Recreation Center

25 West Reed Ave., Alexandria

Ladrey High-Rise

300 Wythe St., Alexandria

For more information, visit alive-inc.org, email info@alive-inc.org or visit the ALIVE! Facebook page. For those affected by the government shutdown, here are ways to cope with the uncertainty and anxiety, and other helpful food and human service resources.