Mayor Alyia Gaskins

Mayor Alyia Gaskins hosted her third annual back-to-school salon event on Tuesday, Aug. 12, providing free professional hairstyling, backpacks, and food to girls living in Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority properties across the city.

The event, held at Iye’s Beauty Salon, located at 4600 Duke Street, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., served between 15 and 20 girls, ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade, as well as one young man.

Alexandria Mayor Alyia Gaskins has been chosen to participate in the ninth class of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, a prestigious executive management training program designed to strengthen municipal leadership.

Gaskins joins 47 mayors from 17 countries in a nine-month professional development program, a collaboration between Bloomberg Philanthropies, Harvard Kennedy School, and Harvard Business School. The initiative was created to address the gap in executive development opportunities for public sector leaders.

Last month, Alexandria Mayor Alyia Gaskins was interviewed by the New York Times about the challenges of running a city under the Trump administration.

After a little more than six months in office, Gaskins was one of 16 mayors interviewed by The Times at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Tampa, Florida. She said that the biggest challenges the city faces is uncertainty of federal funding, that recent political violence in Minnesota forced her to change her habits, and more.