Colby’s Crew started with one horse and one decision from the heart. Colby, a 4-year-old chestnut stallion with white markings, had run out of options. Allison (Ally) Smith, an experienced equestrian studying nursing and training horses on the side, saw an online post about him: “Bound for slaughter. Needs experienced handler.” “He was flashy and […]
Colby’s Crew started with one horse and one decision from the heart. Colby, a 4-year-old chestnut stallion with white markings, had run out of options. Allison (Ally) Smith, an experienced equestrian studying nursing and training horses on the side, saw an online post about him: “Bound for slaughter. Needs experienced handler.” “He was flashy and […]
What do we always say? If you’ve got it, haunt it—and Charlottesville’s got “it” in spades, as long as “it” is a frightening amount of Halloween (and pre-Halloween) fun. You’ve got just over three weeks to drink in all the boos you can handle, and we’ve scared up the best options in (and out of, […]
It’s late afternoon on a soccer field, at the tail end of summer. The sinking sun is casting long shadows, and the last of the mosquitoes are homing in on anything with blood. But the women on the field don’t notice the little buzzers; they’re concentrating on their drills. Running, passing, tackling—but this game is […]
There are no places on Cherry Avenue or West Main Street where residents of the Fifeville neighborhood can walk to buy fresh ingredients to prepare nutritious meals, but Aleen Carey doesn’t want you to call the area a food desert. “A desert is a naturally occurring state,” said Carey, the co-executive director of Cultivate Charlottesville. […]
Twenty years ago, Christina Ball was teaching evening Italian courses to adult continuing education students at the University of Virginia. She had come up in academic spaces, doing a Ph.D. at Yale and teaching for a while at Wake Forest before moving to Charlottesville. But as she watched the waitlists for those evening courses grow, […]
When you want to initiate change—real change—it’s hard to do it alone. The time, effort, versatility, and resources it takes to affect progress as an individual requires a level of passion and privilege most of us cannot afford when there are children to raise and bills to be paid. But when change needs to happen, […]
On September 28, 2021, former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe said something during the second gubernatorial debate that would spark a movement of conservatives in the state: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” The Hill would later describe McAuliffe’s statement as “deserving of a top listing in the Hall of […]
By Tami Keaveny, CM Turner, and Ella Powell Charlottesville is a city of music fans and aficionados. We have an abundance of sonic riches in the national tours that touch down at our venues, and we’ve built a few careers here as well (looking at you, jam daddy DMB). There’s a lot of talk about […]
Last summer, as Dakota Justus was revving up for his final year in high school, a couple of his teachers reached out to him about an opportunity to improve his community while also fulfilling a graduation requirement. He took the idea and ran with it. For his senior project, which would culminate his participation in […]
On the last Monday in July, in the fields behind the Fifth Street Starbucks, a crew of sweaty high school kids is taking a mid-morning break, swigging energy water and snarfing down bags of chips (after working outside all morning, they need the salt). Their blue T-shirts say “Trailblazers.” And that’s what they are—pioneers in […]