What’s Happening Around Town?
EarthCraft Virginia Announces Winners of the 5th Annual Sustainable Leadership Awards
Regional leaders in the advancement of sustainable design and construction were honored on Tuesday as winners of EarthCraft Virginia’s Annual Sustainable Leadership Awards. Winners were announced at the organization’s 5th annual awards ceremony on April 1st at The SunTrust Building in downtown Richmond. The event drew over 100 individuals representing home builders, non-profit and for-profit housing providers and developers, program sponsors, affordable housing advocates and those interested in creating green housing opportunities in Virginia.
Each year, EarthCraft Virginia presents awards in a variety of categories to builders, developers and other stakeholders throughout the region who demonstrate superior dedication to the advancement of sustainable housing.
Winners are honored in a variety of categories to cover new construction, renovation, single family, multifamily and more. Winners were awarded based on projects completed in 2013. This year’s award winners from the Charlottesville area include Southern Development Homes as Single Family Builder of the Year; and Piedmont Housing Alliance for Multifamily Renovation of the Year—Scottsville School Apartments (see separate news item below on this achievement).
“The 5th Annual Sustainable Leadership Awards recognize the best initiatives in sustainable housing in Virginia over the past year,” says EarthCraft Virginia Executive Director, K.C. Bleile. “In the five years that we have hosted this awards ceremony, we have been amazed by the dedication and growth of the individuals that we have been privileged to work with. This year’s nominees and winners are no exception, all of whom having gone above and beyond standard building expectations to become the leaders in transforming Virginia’s home building market with high performance, sustainable homes.”
Dennis Creech, Executive Director of Southface Energy Institute, founding organization of the EarthCraft program fifteen years ago, joined us from Atlanta, Georgia to deliver the keynote address. Creech shared his perspective on the future of the green building industry, trends and potential challenges within the market, and the value of EarthCraft Virginia’s achievements over the last seven years.
Event sponsors included: Virginia Housing Development Authority, Superior Walls of Central Virginia, American Standard Heating and Air Conditioning, Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, Habitat for Humanity Virginia, and Velux Skylights. Additional information about the Sustainable Leadership Awards can be found on the event website.
Literacy Volunteers Participate in “World Book Night”
On April 23, 2014, 25,000 volunteers from Kodiak to Key West will give away half a million free books in more than 6,000 towns and cities across America. Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville Albemarle (LVCA) will be part of the movement to spread a love of reading to non-readers by giving away books at Vinegar Hill Café on April 23 from 4:00-5:00pm.
“We are thrilled to be part of this wonderful event. Many of our students are learning to read for very practical reasons—to get better jobs, help their children with homework, and understand official forms and documents. But we hope along the way our students also gain a love of reading and this event emphasizes just that,” said Executive Director Ellen Osborne.
World Book Night (WBN) involves volunteer book lovers promoting reading by going into their communities and handing out free copies of books selected by WBN to appeal to light or non-habitual readers. WBN takes place on Shakespeare’s birthday and is in its third year in the U.S., after launching in the United Kingdom in 2011. The WBN book picks are by a wide array of award-winning and bestselling adult and YA authors, as well as classics, books in Spanish, and books in Large Print.
“We hope community members can join us in this celebration of the written word,” said Osborne. “It should be a relaxing event where avid readers can introduce new readers to wonderful books.” LVCA staff and volunteers will be giving away copies of When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago and/or The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, depending on which books WBN can provide.
LVCA is an independent, non-profit organization that offers free, confidential, individualized basic literacy and English as a second language instruction to adults. For more information about LVCA, please visit www.literacyforall.org.
Piedmont Housing Alliance’s Scottsville School Apartments Named Multifamily Renovation Project of the Year
Piedmont Housing Alliance (“PHA”) has won the “Multifamily Renovation Project of the Year” award as part of EarthCraft Virginia’s 5th Annual Sustainable Leadership Awards, the organization’s yearly awards presentation that recognizes Virginia leaders in the adoption of green, sustainable housing.
PHA’s Scottsville School Apartments project was honored on Tuesday evening at a ceremony in downtown Richmond that brought together more than 100 individuals representing home builders, non-profit and for-profit housing providers and developers, affordable housing advocates and those interested in creating green housing opportunities in Virginia.
The Scottsville School Apartments project renovated a 34 unit apartment building for the elderly in Scottsville, VA (Albemarle County). The project was funded through the Historic Tax Credit and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit programs, and received weatherization funding through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Scottsville School is the third EarthCraft-certified multifamily project completed by PHA in the last five years. PHA incorporates energy efficiency and sustainable design into all its housing developments.
3rd Annual Tom Tom Founders Festival
Tom Tom Founders Festival returns in 2014 as a gathering for inventors, creatives, and entrepreneurs across the Mid-Atlantic. Five days of free concerts, art, talks, and competitions over April 9 – 13 will transform the city’s historic Downtown Mall into a hub for new ideas.
Culture:
• MUSIC: Hundreds of artists from Nashville to New York will play over 60 free concerts in multiple venues across Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. Highlights include the McGuffey Block Party, Picnic Day in Lee Park, a crowd chosen Songwriting Competition, an Indie Rock Showcase, and the Belmont Bash. Line-up.
• ART: Charlottesville becomes a creative canvas for artists, residents, and visitors with graffiti installations, poetry in trolleys, open air craft markets, and sculpture in parking spaces. Design panels, a silent auction, documentary screenings on immigration, exoneration, and DIY culture, and workshops on comics, zines, and screenprinting all express an art that is fun and relevant.
• FOOD: Branding the Piedmont’s Food Identity The farms, vineyards, and breweries of the Blue Ridge Valley are second to none on the East Coast. Tom Tom explores this farm to table ecosystem through a summit with statewide leaders, featuring talks, panels, open air markets, chef demos, craft beer, and prix fixe menus at C&O, Brookville, and The Ivy Inn.
Ideas:
• ENTREPRENEURSHIP: The Culture and the Financing of Founding The CEOs, CTOs, and Founders of RKG, SNL Financial, Red Light Management, WillowTree, and other national brands located in Charlottesville talk about why they have started and stayed in a small town. Angel investors who have collectively raised, invested, and mentored $100Ms of capital in Charlottesville discuss what they look for in deals. The Crowdfunded Pitch Night and $250k Galant Challenge present opportunities for students and locals to launch new businesses.
• TECHNOLOGY: The Future of the Cloud IBM’s Cloud Evangelist and all time leading patent holder Rick Hamilton joins Tumblr and local tech all-stars to look at how cloud computing impacts the daily lives of corporations and consumers, changing the nature of work, communication, and privacy.
• ENERGY: The New Energy Ethic Sandy Reisky, developer of over $1 billion in renewables, joins Jan Van Dokkum, partner for greentech at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, & Byers in examining the new energy ethic emerging around sustainable fuel, driven in part by Virginia entrepreneurs.
• HEALTH: Healthcare Beyond the Hospital The future of medicine lies beyond hospital walls, with noninvasive therapies, mobile health technology, and better outpatient and preventive care. Researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors discuss strategies for reaching telehealth frontiers.
• EDUCATION: The Maker Revolution Eric Siegel, Director of the New York Hall of Science, joins dozens of student entrepreneurs in exploring The Maker Revolution, an ethos of design and self-sufficiency, and its impact in school systems across the country.
• LAW: Exoneration as Innovation CNN Films’ Death Row Stories examines the human stories of wrongful conviction, followed by a panel on whether Virginia needs a justice commission. Speakers include Chip Harding, Albemarle County Sheriff, and John Whitehead, Founder of The Rutherford Institute, and U.Va. Law faculty.
• TOM TALKS: Local Innovators. Global Impacts. A talk series on Saturday 4/12 with Charlottesville’s leading lights: personalized medicine, revolutionary advances in cancer treatment, the future of America’s community college system, the encore career, and jazz’s contribution to American art.
For full information on Tom Tom’s 110+ speakers and 60+ concerts, visit www.tomtomfest.com. For full speaker and band list, contact carolyn@tomtomfest.com.