Loudoun County – Page 11 – Notes n Letters

They’re no dummies!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Simulation lab at GWU’s School of Nursing

It was harrowing, student nurse Lisa Bowen said.

Her patient was undergoing a medical procedure on his kidney. Shortly after Bowen attached an IV to give him blood, he began showing signs of a severe allergic reaction.

“I can’t breathe,” he gasped. His arm felt itchy, he said, and his heart began racing. Bowen quickly detached the IV and called for a doctor.

Although allergic reactions can be life-threatening, Bowen never worried that her patient would die — because he was not alive. He was one of a growing number of high-tech, lifelike manikins that the George Washington University School of Nursing in Ashburn uses to train students.

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Washington Post, December 6, 2015

After-school program helps low-income families

Volunteer tutor Lauren Barber (center) helps children with their reading and homework in one of the after-school classrooms at INMED’s Family and Youth Opportunity Center in Sterling.

As part of its growing presence in the Sterling area, INMED Partnerships for Children has begun offering a free after-school program for children from low-income families.

INMED launched the program, which provides tutors and mentors to help children with homework, at its Family and Youth Opportunity Center on Ridgetop Circle this month. The center serves children ages 6 to 12 who live in Sterling-area neighborhoods with a high percentage of low-income families, said Maria Vasquez, executive director of the Opportunity Center. Many of the children’s parents do not speak English, she said.

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Washington Post, November 29, 2015

Blankets and coats for refugees in Turkey

Northern Virginia officials are uniting again this year in an effort to help the growing numbers of those who have fled war-torn Syria and taken refuge in Turkey.

For the past two years, local officials and volunteers have organized drives that collected more than 43,000 blankets for delivery to refugees in Turkey. This year, as the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey has swelled to more than 2 million, the drive is being expanded to include new and “gently used” winter coats, as well as blankets and cash donations.

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Washington Post, November 22, 2015

Willowsford: community with a farm

The developers of Willowsford, a few miles west of Dulles Airport, tout amenities common to new communities: parks, community centers and a future regional library. But the biggest draw might be the farmland woven into the fabric of the community.

Willowsford operates a farm stand that sells food grown on site, conducts classes on cooking local seasonal produce, and offers farm-themed camps and educational experiences for children.

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Washington Post, November 15, 2015

Leesburg Halloween art contest

For the next week, the store windows of downtown Leesburg will be filled with ghosts, witches, bats and an assortment of other scary creatures, courtesy of local teens engaged in a friendly competition.

Teams of art students from three Leesburg high schools — Heritage, Loudoun County and Tuscarora — are competing in a Halloween art contest sponsored by the Leesburg Downtown Business Association.

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Washington Post, October 25, 2015

Financial systems delayed again

For the third time this year, the ongoing $41.4 million upgrade of Loudoun County’s aging financial management systems — which handle core computer functions such as accounting, procurement, assessments, taxation and human resources for the county government — missed a scheduled completion date.

The Board of Supervisors allocated $25 million in its fiscal 2010 budget to replace the system, but the cost of the upgrade has exceeded that amount by more than 65 percent.

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Washington Post, October 18, 2015

Chairman candidates debate

Candidates for chairman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors squared off in a debate Tuesday, trading blows and staking out differing positions on such issues as all-day kindergarten, the rural economy and the need for a police department.

Four-term incumbent Chairman Scott K. York spent much of the evening on the defensive, responding to attacks from Democrat Phyllis J. Randall and Republican Charlie King, while independent challenger Thomas E. Bellanca mostly stayed out of the heated discussion. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Loudoun County, the debate was held at the Sterling campus of Northern Virginia Community College.

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Washington Post, October 11, 2015

40 hikes at age 40

When Stephanie Manning decided to mark her 40th birthday by completing 40 hikes in one year, she was celebrating more than her age.

A few days earlier, Manning had begun to emerge from a deep, six-month postpartum depression. Embarking on a year of hikes, she said, helped her to overcome that and to reconnect with family members and friends in ways she had never expected.

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Washington Post, September 27, 2015

Priorities for Dulles area

Dulles area residents want more roads to ease traffic and connect neighborhoods; biking and walking trails; access to government services; and options for shopping, entertainment and recreation — all while trees, streams and open space are protected.

Those were residents’ central messages in input gathered through Loudoun County’s Dulles Community Outreach Project. The final report, which the county’s planning staff presented to the Board of Supervisors Wednesday, included a list of 28 “consensus recommendations,” many of which involved transportation improvements and community amenities.

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Washington Post, September 20, 2015

Theater students perform at Edinburgh Fringe Festival

A group of 11 theater students from Rock Ridge High School in Ashburn took their act to the famed Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland last month.

All the students performed at the festival — including in an original one-act play written by one of the students — and they saw at least 10 other shows, their teacher, Tony Cimino-Johnson, said.

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Washington Post, September 13, 2015