The Friendship Firehouse Festival is back on this year after having been cancelled last year due to — you know.
The festival is an annual celebration of the Friendship Firehouse (107 S Alfred Street) in Old Town that opened in 1855, and has since been run as a museum focusing on fire-fighting history and fire safety. The museum hosts community events throughout the year, and holds preserved historic artifacts.
After taking a year off, the Around The World Cultural Food Festival will be celebrated later this month at Oronoco Bay Park on the Alexandria waterfront.
It’s the first year that the annual event will be hosted in Alexandria, and it will feature more than a dozen food, dessert and smoothie vendors making dishes from around the world.
The short-lived resurgence of drive-in movie screenings in Alexandria during the pandemic seems to be winding down as the organizers of the Alexandria Drive-In announced the event will be discontinuing after this Saturday’s screening of Shrek.
The closing marks the end of short-lived fad when movie theaters were unsafe due to COVID-19. The Alexandria Drive-In launched last August with Jurassic Park and within four days all six initially scheduled movies were sold-out.
Were you wondering where the city’s fireworks were this weekend?
Fret not: the city reserves its fireworks and pageantry for Saturday, July 10, the celebration of the City of Alexandria’s birthday — a tradition that outdates 4th of July.
The promise of learning more about what types of city services are available through various departments might sound painfully dull, but fortunately someone in city bureaucracy understood that the promise of free food helps add spice to that offer.
The City of Alexandria, along with a handful of partners like Alexandria Redevelopment Housing Authority and the Campagna Center, is hosting a series of cookouts this week and next to provide more information on local youth and family programs, including Safe Space and anti-bullying programs.
The Little Theatre of Alexandria is expanding capacity and easing restrictions, but you still have to wear face masks when the 2021-22 season begins next month with Neil Simon’s Rumors.
LTA is expanding capacity to 145 patrons in LTA’s 215-seat capacity venue at 600 Wolfe Street in Old Town. Face masks will still be required for members of the audience, and the plan is to return to full capacity in January.
The Alexandria Black History Museum is partnering with Washington Revels Jubilee Voices — a group that preserves local Black traditions through a cappella music, dramatic performances and dance — for a virtual Juneteenth Celebration this weekend.
Juneteenth is a holiday that marks date that slavery was fully abolished in the United States. A virtual program called “Our People: A Juneteenth Story” will premiere on Saturday, June 19, and will include footage of Washington Revels Jubilee Voices at historically significant sites throughout Alexandria presented by the Black History Museum.
Alexandria’s 272nd birthday celebration is happening on the waterfront in Old Town on Saturday, July 10, and the City is making plans for a shortened program without birthday cake and with multiple viewing locations to reduce crowding.
The show, which usually brings tens of thousands of visitors, was canceled last year due to the pandemic. The concert usually includes the National Anthem, a musical program by the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra and a fireworks show, accompanied by Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with live Howitzer cannon fire by the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry “Old Guard” Presidential Salute Battery.
Alexandria honored its military veterans on Monday in Del Ray, in one of the first public events in the city since the easing of COVID-19 restrictions on Friday.
Mayor Justin Wilson and Vice Mayor Elizabeth Bennett-Parker were among the attendees at Monday afternoon’s event, which was held at the Captain Rocky Versace Plaza and Vietnam Veterans Memorial outside the Mount Vernon Recreation Center.
Alexandria Makers Market founder Alyssa Kovach thinks that online marketplaces take away a personal touch.
For nearly two years she’s managed up to 80 Alexandria makers, selling everything from soap and candles to dog food and popcorn seasoning, and on June 27 will feature 15 makers and their products for her first in-person event since the start of the pandemic last year.
Governor Ralph Northam’s guidance easing restrictions on public gatherings takes effect today, and groups in Alexandria are already planning a number of in-person events that traditionally bring in tens of thousands of people.
Northam recently announced that effective April 1, additional capacity and indoor and outdoor gathering limits will increase to 50 people for indoor settings and 100 people for outdoor settings. Additionally, entertainment venues must continue operating at 30% capacity with a maximum of 500 patrons; recreational sporting events can increase 30% capacity, or from 25 people to 100 people per field; and graduation events must have a cap of 5,000 people or 30% capacity for outdoor events.
