A federal food aid program that helps about one-eighth of Americans buy groceries stands to be paused Nov. 1 because of the government shutdown — but Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) says he has found a workaround.
The governor declared a state of emergency today (Thursday), which he said will let him spend emergency funds to provide hunger relief to recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which is set to pause payments at the end of next week.
Three options have emerged as county leaders attempt to determine the future of the newly unoccupied Lee Community Center.
The county could upgrade the building, expand the facility or demolish it and construct something entirely new.
When Eddie Kaufholz and his family moved to Arlington nearly five years ago, they were not thinking about starting a business. They wanted to live in a place that was diverse, interesting and full of opportunity, with a school system they could rely on. Arlington fit.
In the years that followed, working out of a home office off Columbia Pike, he consulted with organizations across Northern Virginia and around the country: nonprofits, advocacy groups, mid-sized companies, agencies of various sizes. The work itself was good. But somewhere across all those projects, he started to notice a pattern.
”The agency model has gotten really bloated,” Kaufholz says. ”Layers, handoffs, middle management. The senior people who pitch the work often disappear once it starts. The idea with PILLAR was to strip all of that down; keep senior people on the work, approach each client with humility and care, do world-class strategy and execution, and pass the efficiency back to the client instead of absorbing it as agency margin.”
That thinking, slowly, became PILLAR, the Arlington-headquartered creative, communications and marketing agency Kaufholz founded.
PILLAR, he says, is built on an old idea. ”An idea that has always been possible but rarely practiced: that an agency should be structured to serve the work itself.” The team that delivers the work is assembled around the specific needs of each client and only stays as long as the work calls for them.
”The senior strategist on your kick-off call is the senior strategist writing your messaging,” Kaufholz says. ”Every person on a project is there because the work specifically calls for them.”
PILLAR’s recent work has spanned human rights, executive leadership, higher education, advocacy and direct-to-consumer ecommerce. The roster has included national nonprofits, a national multimillion-dollar direct-to-consumer brand and a number of institutions navigating significant moments of strategic change. The model is built to scale up to be the agency of record for a national brand, or to scale down to design a logo for a neighborhood nonprofit. PILLAR takes equal pride and care in both.
What Kaufholz did not understand when he started, he said, was how much the County itself would matter in making any of it possible. (more…)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday rejected dueling partisan bills to pay federal workers during the government shutdown, with both Republicans and Democrats deflecting blame as many employees are set to miss their first full paycheck at the end of this week.
With unpaid staff and law enforcement standing nearby, Republicans objected as Democrats proposed a voice vote on their legislation to pay all federal workers and prevent President Donald Trump’s administration from mass firings. Democrats then blocked a Republican bill to pay employees who are working and not furloughed, 54-45.
The tennis courts at Bluemont Park are getting a multimillion-dollar overhaul aimed at creating a regional showplace for the sport.
County Board members unanimously approved a $6.5 million construction contract on Tuesday for a project that began the planning phase in 2018 but was halted during the pandemic era before being restarted. While advocates spoke to the need for improvements to the crumbling facilities, the vote also earned flak from a local pickleball enthusiast.
St. Agnes Catholic Church in Arlington is hosting its monthly run & walk social on June 18th (Thursday) at 6:30pm. The 3 or 4 mile run (or walk) will start in the back parking lot (off N. Stafford St.) and end at St. Agnes. Participants can enjoy complimentary pizza afterwards. Drinks are BYOB. Extra points if you wear Catholic school swag. Thank you Father Oetjen, who started off our May run from Court House to/from the Marine Corps War Memorial with a prayer (and ran a competitive pace). Also, thank you to the Notre Dame and Georgetown alumni who wore their schools’ colors!
Please RSVP at the link, so we know how much pizza to get. Thank you!
The following was originally emailed to ARLnow Press Club members this past weekend. Sign up to get upgraded newsletters and exclusive features while supporting local news in your community.
Hoping to save on dining and other purchases, or check out limited-time offerings at Arlington restaurants?
A fish-forward pedicure experience is in store for some shoppers at the Pentagon City mall.
At Garra Spas, clients dip their feet into basins filled with garra rufa fish for a pedicure. The toothless, freshwater species is known to feed on dead skin with a “gentle, therapeutic touch,” owner Christina Pearson said in a release.
The strategy of running as a tight group for large portions of the race helped the Bishop O’Connell Knights win two significant boys cross-country championships this fall.
The most recent was a state title, coming Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 21) in Newport News when the Knights won the nine-team State Catholic Cross Country high-school crown on the flat and tight-turned 5,000-meter Newport News Park course.
Arlington school leaders say an internal error led to “sensitive employee information” being posted on the school system’s procurement network.
“The files included the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and birthdays of employees and retirees under 65 years old who are currently enrolled in the APS medical healthcare plan,” Brian Stockton, the school system’s chief of staff, wrote in an email to personnel.
A recent forum quizzed Falls Church City Council candidates on what local governments can do to blunt ever-increasing costs of child care and preschool services in Northern Virginia.
It was, one incumbent noted, the first time the issue had been raised during a candidate forum in her memory.
