EVENTS
Summer Concert Series Arrowbrook Park
The Fairfax County Park Authority announced its 2018 Summer Entertainment Series which includes music at our very own Arrowbrook Centre Park located in Herndon, VA. Headliners at the park include an eclectic blend of musicians playing everything from Blues to Reggae.
The free concerts will take place each Saturday beginning on July 7, 2018 and continuing through August 25, 2018. Each concert begins at 7:30 p.m. and ends at 8:30 p.m. Arrowbrook Centre Park is located at 2351 Field Point Road, Herndon, VA.
For a complete schedule of 2018 concerts, please click here.
Opening of the Justin D. Webb Training Center
The Justin D. Webb Training Center opened its doors on February 1st, 2017, with funding from the Ruth and Hal Launders Charitable Trust. The center is located across the street from the renowned and respected non-profit, Boca Helping Hands. BHH works to provide food, medical, and financial assistance within the community, as well as education, job training, and guidance to create self-sufficiency. Members of the RHL trust have been working with Boca Helping Hands and the Webb family over the last year to design the Justin D. Webb center which will be used to educate and empower its students to create independent and fulfilling lives for themselves. The staff of the center intend to train a least 240 people by the end of the year. This new building is enabling the final goal of the non-profit, which is to get people out of the soup kitchen line and out of the cycle of poverty.
The center is named in the memory of Board Member Jack Webb’s son, Justin who spent his short life encouraging those around him to reach higher. The board, along with the Webb family are excited to have played a part in launching this center filled with opportunities for the community and the ability to carry on Justin’s sense of optimism and resilience.
The Opening of the Justin D.Webb Center dinner for Trustees and their families and friends was prepared and served by the first graduating class of the Boca Helping Hands Hospitality Job Training Program– February 1, 2017.
Edesia Site Visit
In July 2016, the four family Board members of the Ruth and Hal Launders Charitable Trust took the opportunity on their way to Newport for their summer Board meeting to stop and tour the newly opened state of the art Edesia Factory located at the Quonset Point in North Kingstown RI.
Edesia is a 501c3 nonprofit social enterprise on a mission to help treat and prevent malnutrition in the world’s most vulnerable populations. From their state-of-the-art factory in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, their dedicated staff (hailing from over 23 countries) produces peanut-based, ready-to-use therapeutic and supplementary foods that reaches malnourished children in over 48 countries. Edesia’s foods are distributed in partnerships with humanitarian agencies such as the US Agency for International Development, US Department of Agriculture, the World Food Programme, UNICEF, and others.
The new factory is worth a visit on many levels and to see how manufacturing is being carried out in the 21st century. Every bit of machinery is state of the art with heavy loading and packing being done by robots. There is sufficient room in the new factory to store the boxes of the peanut based ready-to-use therapeutic foods produced in the factory and ship the boxes directly out by truck to New York City ports. There are test kitchens, quality control rooms and a large assembly line, with everything visible through large windows which allow staff and visitors a bird’s eye view of the quality control manufacturing processes. In today’s environment Edesia has three shifts running 24 hours a day focusing on producing their life saving product for children in the countries that are presently on the verge of famine; Yemen, Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia.
Tours can be arranged by accessing the Edesia website and filling out a form on-line. Well worth a visit.