Get your Easter baskets ready and hop to egg hunts and other festivities over the holiday weekend in Alexandria.
Egg hunts, visits with the Easter Bunny and more family-friendly events are taking place over Easter weekend. Some of the highlights are an underwater egg hunt in the pool, brunch with the Easter Bunny and Councilman John Taylor Chapman’s returning egg hunt.
A bill that would make it easier for churches to pursue affordable housing development on their properties is on its way to Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D). An Alexandria church leader whose church brought affordable housing to its property says the bill would help churches that have faced greater challenges with getting local approval.
The “Faith in Housing” bill would remove the rezoning step for faith-based organizations and other tax-exempt organizations seeking to develop housing on their land. Under the bill, the developments must be at least 60 percent affordable units for a minimum of 30 years. Church-based developments would be subject to property tax unless the locality chooses to exempt them.
Alexandria’s Shiloh Baptist Church is among more than 30 historically Black churches to receive a new grant aimed at preserving and restoring their buildings.
The church at 1401 Jamieson Avenue has received $360,000 from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund as part of its Preserving Black Churches grant program. Recipients were announced last week.
The Alexandria Learning Cooperative wants to expand into a full-time private school and move operations to Fairlington United Methodist Church.
The school has submitted a special use permit application to transition from a homeschool cooperative into a full-time private school for up to 75 students. The move means renting out three classrooms at Fairlington UMC and expanding its current two-day-a-week program to allow for full-time Montessori-inspired classes for kids ages 5 to 9, where students learn at their own pace in mixed-age classes.
The Alexandria Choral Society is collaborating with the Alexandria Children’s Chorus later this month for a concert that invites audiences to listen “with your heart, mind, and spirit.”
The “Do You Hear What I Hear” concert will explore sound and silent spaces in musical pieces such as “The Sound of Silence” and “Ain’t No Grave” at Westminster Presbyterian Church (2701 Cameron Mills Road). The concert will be held on Sunday, Oct. 26, from 3 to 5 p.m.
Many of Alexandria’s religious and elected leaders have paid tribute to Pope Francis since he died in Rome on Easter Monday, April 21.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, president of Virginia Theological Seminary, said that the world feels a little emptier today following the death of the 88-year-old pontiff.
On Sunday, Alexandria’s Alfred Street Baptist Church announced it would be cutting ties to the Kennedy Center after President Trump purged the arts center’s board.
Alfred Street Baptist Church joins a list of events and shows canceling on the venue. The church formerly hosted an annual Christmas performance at the Kennedy Center.
Virginia Theological Seminary is defending one of its former students, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington Marianne Budde, for recently confronting President Donald Trump at Washington National Cathedral.
In a sermon on Tuesday, Budde asked Trump to have mercy on “gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.” She also called on Trump to have mercy on communities “whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”
Trinity United Methodist Church will celebrate a unique milestone next month — turning 250 years old.
The church pre-dates the United States by less than two years. On Nov. 20, 1774, teenage preacher William Duke spread the gospel to a small group in Old Town, planting a seed that would see thousands of congregants and result in the church as it stands today at 2911 Cameron Mills Road.
After extensive modernizations the last seven years, Bishop Ireton High School (201 Cambridge Road) now wants to add a new bell tower and new roof to its chapel renovation project.
There’s no word in the proposal as to whether the bell tower (on top of which would sit a three-foot-tall crucifix) will include a bell, if it will ring, how loudly and when.
It was quite a week in Alexandria.
Hungry? Our top story this week is about Del Ray’s Matt and Tony’s All Day Kitchen + Bar (1501 Mt. Vernon Avenue) making Yelp’s Top 100 Brunch Spots 2024.
