Caite Hamilton

Let’s celebrate! 2025 is a banner year for the arts in Charlottesville, with a host of beloved local organizations marking milestone anniversaries. From music schools to galleries to citywide festivals, these creative cornerstones have been inspiring our community for years—and this year, they’re giving us even more reason to cheer. Here’s who’s celebrating. 90 years […]

There’s something special brewing inside Charlottesville’s Main Street Market—and it’s not just the coffee. Give & Take, a thoughtfully curated pop-up café, is redefining what a local coffee shop can be: community-focused, creatively inspired, and uncompromising on quality. Founder Aja Baldwin started working as a barista in 2018 and quickly fell in love with the […]

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In some ways, the topic of littering seems out of date—everyone knows not to do it, right?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 […]

Ever drive down an Albemarle country road, with its winding fences and sprawling fields, and wonder: What’s back there? Answer: stunning farm properties we’ve only ever dreamed of visiting. Every spring, the Grace Church Historic Farm Tour opens the gates to some of Albemarle’s most beautiful private farms. Hosted by Grace Church in Keswick, the […]

While most institutions of higher learning prioritize cognitive development and professional skills, UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center has sought to integrate mindfulness and emotional intelligence into the school’s curriculum since its founding in 2012. In spring of 2025, CSC took its work one step further, unveiling a long-awaited facility that, on its opening weekend, began hosting […]

Unless you’ve been out of bounds, you know pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the United States. Here in Charlottesville, there are at least 11 places to play, from public spots like Pen Park to private clubs and recreation centers. In spring of 2025, Darden Towe’s advisory committee served up a 3-1 vote to convert […]

“Resilient, talented, and ambitious”—that’s how UVA president Jim Ryan described the 2025 graduating class, a group of coeds he got to know more closely than some, thanks to his weekly Run With Jim events, in an Instagram post following the final run. UVA launched the First-Year Run With Jim—a two-mile jog around Grounds—in 2021, when […]

We’ll never say no to more reading opportunities, so the opening of Commerce Street Books is a welcome addition to the local bookstore scene. Founded by Philip Lorish, a UVA alum with a Ph.D. in religious studies, Commerce Street promises to be “the modern bookshop Charlottesville deserves,” with new releases, events, and a tightly curated […]