A new recipe for success: Chef Antwon Brinson’s Culinary Boot Camp helps local residents build life-changing kitchen careers

A teacher changed the course of chef Antwon Brinson’s life. Now, as he trains Charlottesville residents for kitchen careers, he’s trying to do the same for his own students. Brinson says he never thought he’d become a chef. He enjoyed cooking growing up, but didn’t consider it a career until high school. “I had a […]

Block party: Charlottesville’s downtown, long a subject of controversy, is settling into its own

Charlottesville’s downtown has been a source of debate and controversy for nearly a century. Could the debate finally be coming to a close? For the first time in a long while, some agreement has emerged about how to balance downtown development—residential versus commercial, shared versus dedicated space and parking in particular. “The downtown area is […]

Paper pushing: What happened to voting machines in Virginia?

Over the course of the 2016 presidential election, then-candidate Donald Trump asserted the election was going to be “rigged” by unspecified actors. No evidence was ever offered to support that claim, and his concerns about election integrity curiously seem to have evaporated on November 9. But the uncertainty and doubt generated by those statements, and […]

Tools for sustainability: GreenBlue programs make businesses more environmentally friendly

Greater productivity is good for business. What if the materials that comprised your products could be used—and reused—more productively over their entire life cycles? No matter what your business makes, you have potential to get more value out of your materials. Charlottesville-based nonprofit GreenBlue can help. Its mission is to foster “a resilient system of […]

College prep: How to save for secondary education in Virginia

The words “back to school” don’t mean the same thing for everyone—it’s not all sharpened pencils and shiny red apples for the teacher. For many, it means scraping together tuition for college. But, school is a time for personal development (and not financial anxiety), which is where Virginia’s 529 plan comes into play. Named after […]