Town Crier Articles

 

 

 

Join your neighbors for an old-fashioned fun-filled, FREE event in the Village Walk neighborhood on the corner of Casey and Settlers Market Boulevard.  

 

Everyone is invited, adults and children, family and friends. Guests will enjoy popcorn, Halloween cookies and other goodies. As an added treat, there will be drawings for a large pumpkins and gift certificates donated by the New Town Commercial Association

 

Activities include cake walks, pumpkin painting, and games including corn hole, and shark toss, races, pie face showdown, a kid’s obstacle course, croquet, and cornhole and more. Get there early for a Halloween “egg” hunt at 2:15 across the street from the main venue. Watch out there may also be mummies!

 

Come to participate or just share the good time and the music.  Also, we really need volunteers. Please contact Liz Fones-Wolf at efwolf@wvu.edu if you can lend a hand.  

 

 

Over the last several years, New Town's summer lifeguards have been undergraduate students who come from all over the world, recruited and trained by Continental Pools, our pool management company.  We have had quite a few lifeguards from Jamaica, Turkey and China.  Our main lifeguard this year was Deanjilee Robinson, who lives just outside the city of Kingston, Jamica, and is starting her senior year at the University of Technology, majoring in finance. This was Deanjilee ‘s second year at our pool and I met her last year.  I learned that to earn as much as possible, she works extra shifts and had not seen anything of the U.S. aside from the airports in Miami and Richmond. I offered to take her and one or more friends to Washington D.C. for a day of sightseeing.  

       

One early Tuesday morning in mid-July, the day each week our pool is closed, Deanjilee, her best friend Beyance Turner, a Finance major, who she recruited to also work as a lifeguard with Continental, and I headed to Washington.  As we drove, Deanjilee and I chatted about the differences between living in Jamaica and the United States. Jamaica is the third largest island in the Caribbean about the size of Connecticut with a population of just 2.1 million. It is known to Americans for its reggae music and as a tropical tourist destination.  She was fascinated as I tried to describe the sheer size and geographic diversity of the U.S.  While impressed with the speed of banking  (opening a bank account in Williamsburg took half-an-hour instead of an all-day ordeal in Kingston), she was appalled by how much processed food Americans eat and surprised that trees in New Town did not bear fruit.  

     

We dropped the car off at my son’s house in Alexandria and took the Metro to the Capitol South Station.  The Metro was a new experience for Deanjilee and Beyance since there are no trains or subways in Jamaica. Our first stop was the Capitol steps, where looking towards the Washington Monument, we took in the majestic view of the National Mall ringed by world-class museums of history, art, technology and the natural sciences. We then headed to the National Gallery of Art, starting with the East Building and its modern art collection. Both young women had visited the small National Gallery of Jamaica, which features two floors of Caribbean art, but were stunned by the magnitude of Smithsonian’s art collections.  Having read about and seen pictures of Picasso’s painting, they particularly enjoyed the impressionist galleries but also took delight in the works of Jackson Pollock and other modernists. We went through both tower galleries and at the rooftop terrace with its huge blue rooster, the young women took in an expansive view of Washington D.C. In the underground moving walkway  between the East and West Buildings, we experienced the “Multiverse,”  an amazing visual light display.  

       

We dashed through the National Gallery’s West Building, which holds master works from the 13th to 19th centuries and Deanjilee and Beyance were amazed by all the religious imagery.  Catching all of our eyes was a grisly 15th century painting on leather of David and Goliath by Andrea del Castagno of Florence. The painting was once attached to a battle shield. We then headed to the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, where they wanted to see the Hope Diamond and dinosaurs and also enjoyed an exhibit on human evolution. The White House was next on their agenda, and we marched a mile through the high heat and humidity to get a view.  

 

On the way back to the Metro to cool off, we stopped at the first floor America on the Move transportation exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History.  The interactive and immersive experiences were their favorite experience of the trip. Most moving for Deanjilee and Beyance was sitting in a recreation of a 1927 segregated North Carolina train station and the experience of riding in a 1950s Chicago Transit Authority "I" train car, complete with sound and moving images. We arrived back in Williamsburg around 9:00 after an enjoyable if exhausting day, with Deanjilee and Beyance having learned more about the United States and me having learned more about Jamaica.

 

 

 

 

In case you missed it, on Saturday, September 21st, New Town residents held a community-wide garage sale. The goal of the community garage sale was to encourage participation from any and all residents, inspire community engagement amongst our residents (as well as with our broader Williamsburg community) and finally, if you were lucky, to lighten your load or pick up that treasure you just couldn’t pass up. While residential (seller) participation was on the lighter side, the traffic and interest along our New Town streets appeared steady and varied from both within and beyond New Town.

 

This inaugural community garage sale was a great start in what will hopefully become a more regular occurrence. The NTRA Board of Directors enthusiastically supported our ideas and graciously let us move out planning and advertising on a very compressed timeline in order to deconflict from other community events as well as take advantage of the warmer weather before fall arrives.

 

We hope the community enjoyed this event.  We learned several lessons to improve future events:

As a reminder, individual garage sales are not allowed under the NTRA rules. NTRA rules, Section II, Para 43, states: “Yard/garage sales are not permitted within the Properties, except that the Association may sponsor a community yard/garage sale at the discretion of the Board of Directors.” 

 

So this was your chance for 2024.  We hope you were able to participate in the community garage sale in a way that met your needs this time, and we look forward to future opportunities.

 

 

Two major events will take to our residential streets in October!

 

On Saturday, October 5, our streets and trails will be awash in pink as we welcome the Run for the Hills, hosted by Here for the Girls (H4TG.)  H4TG is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of young women affected by breast cancer. You can learn more about them at hereforthegirls.org .

 

This event consists of both a race and a health and wellness expo in Sullivan Square. The race offers a 1 mile fun run, a 5K run (a Colonial Road Runners Grand Prix Event), a 5K competitive walk and a virtual run.  New Town residents and businesses can use special promo code NT2024RUN for a discounted registration fee! Register at hereforthegirls.org/run .

 

The health and wellness expo in Sullivan Square is free and open to the public—all are welcome, and this is a stroller-friendly, dog-friendly venue! There will be nutrition and health demonstrations, fitness classes and activities, educational information, health screenings and wellness checks, kids’ activities and much more.

 

New Town residents are invited to show their support for this event! You can request a Cheer Package, which will consist of a ribbon or other decoration to place in front of your home, a route map, a list of designated cheer spots where residents can gather to cheer on the runners, health info and more. If you would like a Cheer Package, please email your name and street address to sommer3553@gmail.com by September 15.

 

We will be doing additional decorating along the race route! If you would like to volunteer to help “pink up” our streets and trails, please email sommer3553@gmail.com by September 15, and I will add you to the volunteer list.

 

On Saturday, October 26, we embrace purple, as we welcome the Walk to End Alzheimer’s, hosted by the Alzheimer’s Association. This is the world’s largest fundraiser for Alzheimer’s care, support and research.

 

This annual event begins and ends at the Gazebo on Main Street. The walk offers a 1 mile route and a 3 mile route. You can view details of the route here. If you would like to form a Walk team, you can register at the Walk's local website. Many of the neighborhoods in the area have Walk teams, and it would be great to see New Town represented!

 

The Walk could also use your help as a volunteer on the day of the event! Please sign up at https://signup.com/go/FKdadZT , where you will find a list of volunteer opportunities, times needed, and number of volunteers needed for each opportunity. 

 

NTRA residents are invited to show their support for this event! If you would like a yard sign or a purple ribbon to place in front of your home, please email your name and street address to sommer3553@gmail.com by September 30. The quantities of signs and ribbons are TBD, so you may get one or the other, or both!

 

We will be doing additional decorating along the Walk route! If you would like to volunteer to help “purple up” our streets, please email sommer3553@gmail.com by September 30, and I will add you to the volunteer list.

 

For many of us in New Town, our porch may be a sunny place for potted plants, a dry place for Amazon deliveries, or a comfortable space to sit and relax.  Porches have been around for many years, but they started to really take off in the 19th century in America as a means of extending the inside of a house to the outside.  Porches contributed to the sense of community, as neighbors gathered together in the evenings, especially in the summer months to escape the indoor heat.

 

Not every residence in New Town is fortunate to have a porch large enough for socializing, but there is a role every resident can play in building a sense of community nevertheless.  On the second Saturday of each month, porches throughout New Town become the focal point for food donations.  Non-perishable food items are left on porches (by 9 AM) for volunteers to collect and deliver to local food pantries.  It’s a simple process that has a profound impact on addressing hunger in our greater Williamsburg community.

 

New Town is participating in these monthly food drives through PORCH Communities, a grass roots organization focusing on hunger relief.  The organization coordinates over 2,000 volunteers representing 550 communities, across 10 states.  In the two months since New Town joined PORCH, volunteers in green shirts have collected 1,243 pounds of food from New Town porches. This just proves that neighborhoods such as ours don’t need large, wrap-around covered porches to create a sense of community.

 

When you see the green PORCH signs go up each month, please remember the role porches have played in bringing people together in building community and help us put our porches to good use in bringing New Town together to fight hunger.

 

Mark your calendars, the next PORCH food drives will be September 14, October 12, November 9 and December 14.

In the days before our last pool party of the summer, we had an amazing week of weather with temperatures in the seventies, a welcome relief from the beastly August heat.  Saturday, August 24, it was a bit warmer, low eighties and sunny, but the pool water after that unseasonably cool weather, was definitely chilly.  Normally the pool is a popular spot on July and August Saturday mornings. Young families, with antsy kids ready to get some energy out, arrive at the pool for the early 10:00 opening.  But this Saturday, at 12:00pm when the pool party was scheduled to begin, Activities Committee members, who had tables piled with pizza, watermelon, and dessert and had created plans for water games, looked around anxiously at the virtually empty pool site.  Only one small group of four residents huddled under an umbrella. 

 

 

But, before the Committee could start thinking about plans for all that excess food, residents began streaming through the gates, with over 60 attending.  This pool party featured eating and visiting more than swimming, although some brave souls took to the water, but not enough for the planned pool games.  Still kids enjoyed playing with beach balls bought for the games, other folks played cornhole, and residents Nathaniel David and Susan Byrne won $25 gift certificates, courtesy of the New Town Commercial Association.  Others, like a new Shirley Park family with a three-year old daughter, learned more about our community and met some neighbors.  

 

The pool closes after Labor Day, but please join the Activities Committee at its next major event, the Fall Fest on Saturday, October 5 (rain date Sunday, Oct. 6) at 2:00 at Village Walk.

 

Check out more fun photos of our 2024 pool parties at our latest photo album:  2024 Pool Party Fun.

 

The New Town Residential Association Activities Committee hosted a Social at the community pool on the evening of Friday, July 19 which drew over seventy residents.  They brought their favorite adult beverages and enjoyed a variety of delicious hors d’oeuvres and desserts.  The  temperate weather with low humidity was a welcome relief from the sweltering heat of the last weeks. Conversation flowed easily as neighbors caught up and met new residents.  Adding a special touch to this event was live music provided by  Joe Duggan, who sang a variety of  favorite songs in a mellow voice, which made a beautiful evening  even more special. We look forward to welcoming Joe back to our future socials.

           

Our next event is a pizza pool party on August 24 at 12:00, rain date Sunday, August 25.  We are adding a new touch to this season’s last pool event,  games, races and prizes for adult and kids!!  We hope to see you there for all the fun. 

 

   

 

   

 

In an emergency are you prepared to take shelter in a designated community facility? 

 

 

Because New Town is within James City County, New Town residents will be sheltering at facilities to be announced at the time of the emergency event.  Per our JCC Emergency Management Planner, those facilities may be a number of local schools and he recommends that in an emergency, individuals heed communications from JCC regarding shelter locations and their hours of operation. Another possible option may be what was described as “Power & Shower,” during which non-city residents may be able to go to a Williamsburg city shelter to power their personal devices and take a shower.             

 

When New Town residents take shelter, the sheltering guidance provided for Williamsburg city residents will also be applicable to New Town residents. The most current guidance may be found at https://www.williamsburgva.gov/210/City-Shelter.  Here is an abbreviated version (as of July 2024).     

 

 

Be prepared to take shelter for approximately 1 – 2 days and bring the following in sufficient quantities for a stay of that length:  

The shelter will be staffed by medical personnel to assist medically-dependent persons to maintain their status during the emergency.  Those who are oxygen-dependent should bring extra oxygen. 

 

The shelter will accommodate service animals. As a pet-friendly shelter, there are limited accommodations for household pets (cats and dogs, no exotic animals).  Pet owners must bring: any pet medications, collar/leash, pet crate, pet food, proof of rabies vaccination, water and food bowls.

 

Last month, 51 homes in New Town donated 550 pounds of non-perishable food. Donations were left on front porches and collected and delivered to Williamsburg House of Mercy for its food pantry. Contributions by neighborhood were as follows: Abbey Commons 40 pounds, Chelsea Green 35 pounds, Charlotte Park townhomes 40 pounds, Charlotte Park detached homes 231 pounds, Village Wall 111 pounds, and Shirley Park, 93 pounds.

 

New Town is participating in monthly food drives through PORCH, a grass-roots organization focused on addressing food insecurity in communities across the US.  Next month’s drive will take place on Saturday, August 10th with donations going to FISH.  Look for an e-blast that week indicating what food items FISH needs the most for its food pantry.  Place donations by your front door by 9 AM and PORCH volunteers (all residents of New Town) will pick up and deliver to FISH.

 

Thank you, New Town, for giving back to the greater Williamsburg community through your generous donations. Remember, we collect on the 2nd Saturday of the month, so consider getting in the habit of putting a bag on your porch for those in need.