Caite Hamilton

You know what they say: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But if it is broke? Do—or get someone else to. The Scrappy Elephant began hosting the Repair Café, a free-to-the-public event wherein you bring your broken stuff (jewelry, small electronics, clothing), and volunteers from the Cville Time Bank, an organized exchange system in […]

Martha Donnelly has found her passion: “pushing back against biodiversity loss.” A landscape architect who retired to Charlottesville in 2018, Donnelly says she was chagrined to find the land around her pretty new home in Rugby Hills was filled with invasive and nonnative plants (“I needed a truck to drag them out.”). But reading Doug […]

In some ways, the topic of littering seems out of date—everyone knows not to do it, right? Wrong, says Cville Litter Pickers, a group of people who meet monthly (sometimes more!) to keep Charlottesville’s streets clean and clear of trash. The earth is not a renewable resource. By picking up trash here at home, the […]

One of the most challenging things about being in middle school isn’t the acne (although that does rank high, as we recall), it’s the standardized testing. For the second year this April, Buford Middle School took an ordinary spring Friday and turned it into an opportunity to hype students for the SOLs. Game Ready Day, […]

UVA is flush with traditions—streaking the Lawn, painting Beta Bridge, singing “The Good Old Song” after, well, almost anything—but only a few of them, like the Balloon Brigade, come with altruistic intentions. Each year during Final Exercises, students are encouraged to carry a balloon that represents who they are and, after they’ve tossed their caps, […]

When Erin Flowers planned a birthday party for one of her toddlers a few years ago, she found herself facing a dilemma familiar to many parents of young children: Where do you take a group of wobbly-legged children to play safely and joyfully? “I realized how limited the options were for safe, beautiful, toddler-friendly play,” […]

Money is one of the longest relationships we’ll ever have, says financial advisor Janasha Bradford. We use it to make decisions about where we live, how we work, how we define success and security. For Bradford, the relationship began with personal loss. At just 7 years old, she watched her mother struggle to manage a […]

A lifelong dancer and music-lover, Krissy Muniz first discovered silent discos while regularly attending music festivals. “Even during the headlining performances, the silent disco was packed,” she says. In 2021, she invested in her own silent disco system, hoping to share her love of music and dance with Charlottesville. Good Times Only, a silent disco […]

There’s a lot to love about a charcuterie board: Meat! Cheese! Sometimes honey! But gathering each of the ingredients? Prepping them? Creating an array that looks Pinterest-worthy? That’s a tall order. In early 2025, Brittany Lowell answered the call with The Wandering Board, a mobile charcuterie cart that allows guests (of your wedding, birthday party, […]