Falls Church News & Notes

The Merrifield Home Depot Store's Carol Luten reports that a $1,800 check from her company was presented Tuesday to Mr. and Mrs. Rankin to help rebuild their home after it was burned to the ground in an accident the day after Thanksgiving. Everything in the home was lost including a pickup truck in the carport. Six area Home Depot stores pitched in on the contribution, and Habitat for Humanity is also involved in helping the family rebuild its home, along with Team Depot volunteers. The Rankin home was located in the Tysons Corner area.

We have it on the best authority that, indeed, Del. Brian Moran is planning to run for Virginia Attorney General in 2005. Moran's law practice brings him into the City of Falls Church routinely.

Here comes a report from a the first week of the new Hollywood Video's operation on the ground floor of The Broadway in the 500 block of W. Broad St. George Mason High School Class of 1996's Jason Wippich, the store's manager, stated that the new store reached "proforma level" in only four days. In under a week it's gained over 400 new memberships and is on track to match the best Hollywood Videos in the region. Wippich said he's happy to be working back in Falls Church, where he grew up, and that in his youth there were no job opportunities for young people in the City except to work for a fast food chain. He said he's now happy to be able to hire young Falls Church residents for Hollywood Video and train them for managerial jobs, not just serving burgers.

So, this is a new wrinkle on the benefits of The Broadway, The Byron and The Spectrum, the new mixed-use projects coming in to Falls Church. In addition to their other benefits, points out Bob Burnette of the City's Planning Commission, is the fact their retail components will create jobs for Falls Church residents, and young people in particular.

Sr. Teresa Ballisty, I.H.M., principal of Falls Church's St. James Middle School, announced that the Best Buy Children's Foundation has awarded a $2,500 grant to the school for integrating interactive technology into the curriculum. The grant funds will be used to enhance the Cloud Observation project the school submitted to the Best Buy Foundation. It integrates math, science and language arts skills, and is being expanded to include students in kindergarten through grade six, according to Science Department chair Marianne Barrick. The Best Buy grants have been awarded to 1,200 schools all across the U.S. since the program was launched last October.

St. James will use the grant for photographic equipment to document the student research and for a computer and projector to promote sharing the data among the grades.

Sara Moody has called our attention to a badly-needed service provided by the Assisting Families of Inmates, Inc., non-profit in Virginia that works with family members of persons who are incarcerated in Virginia prisons. The program provides Saturday transportation to 21 different facilities throughout the state, and also provides in-school support groups, day trips and the summer camps for children with incarcerated parents or caregivers. The camps are run in conjunction with the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church. Individuals and local organizations throughout the state are urged to contribute to helping send children to these camps this summer, and with the other work of the organization, which was formerly known as Prison Family Support Services, Inc. They can be reached as (804) 643-2401.