F.C. Council Members at Fall Festival Saturday
Members of the Falls Church City Council will be present to engage the public at this Saturday’s F.C. Fall Festival at Cherry Hill Park from 10 a.m. to noon at the old barn in the park.
The festival will proceed rain or shine, organizers say, as will Sunday’s annual Run for the Schools hosted by the Falls Church Education Foundation. As of press time, rain is in the forecast.
Saturday, the popular Taste of Falls Church area in the parking lot at City Hall will be open, offering the public for minimal cost samples of tasty foods from some of the City’s most popular restaurants.
On Tuesday, Sept. 27, Hispanic Heritage Month will be celebrated in the City Hall parking lot at 6:30 p.m. ahead of the City Council meeting, which is being moved from Monday when the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur is celebrated.
Rep. Beyer Issues Statement on Retirement of Rep. Wexton
U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, Democrat of Falls Church and Northern Virginia, issued a statement this week after Rep. Jennifer Wexton announced she would not seek re-election following a recent medical diagnosis:
“Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton is a kind and generous person, a devoted advocate for her constituents, and a fighter for the underprivileged across the country and around the world. I am proud to know her and serve with her, and to call her a friend.
“When Jennifer joined the House five years ago her future seemed limitless. Now she has been robbed of much of that future with medical news that is tragic and deeply unfair. As Jennifer continues to serve her constituents, she will have my friendship and support, along with that of so many others.
“Megan and I send our love and best wishes to Jennifer and Andrew, their sons, and the rest of their family, now and always. We are in your corner, Jennifer.”
Plans for Stratford Site Filed With City Hall
Last Friday, plans were filed with the Falls Church Planning Department for a demolition of one of the two buildings on the former Stratford Motel site on West Broad in downtown Falls Church.
“In both economic and aesthetic terms, it would be great to get that defunct downtown site back into productive use,” F.C. Councilman Phil Duncan told the News-Press yesterday.
PRS Crisis Call Center Expands Services in Spanish
PRS, a behavioral health nonprofit serving Northern Virginia which operates as the Regional Crisis Call Center for most of Virginia, has enhanced its offerings and outreach to the Northern Virginia Spanish speaking community in order to broaden access to its lifesaving crisis and suicide prevention services, thanks to a grant from Washington Forrest Foundation.
“With the rise in our community’s mental health needs, we recognize that helping our diverse community access our services is critical to ensuring that we help more people in crisis,” explained Joseph Getch, CEO of PRS. “We are now offering and disseminating materials and messages in Spanish so that this part of our community knows how to use and reach our crisis services. We will be translating our materials in more languages going forward.”
Through its CrisisLink program, PRS operates the mental health crisis 988 suicide and crisis lifeline, textline and chat for Northern Virginia and most of Virginia. The call center utilizes Language Line which was recently expanded by the US Health and Human Services and the 988 Lifeline Partners to include Spanish text and chat. Building on this, PRS translated its CrisisLink web page and printed resources into Spanish. It is also conducting outreach to Northern Virginia nonprofits and churches that serve the local Hispanic community to offer these resources. In addition, PRS is partnering with NBC4 and Telemundo on a public service campaign throughout Hispanic Heritage Month that informs the Hispanic and LatinX communities about how to get help.
