Local roots: Fluvanna music educator Horace Scruggs and his band, Odyssey of Soul, perform unique concert-lectures that cover topics such as the civil rights movement and African influences on American music. In 2020, Scruggs turned his attention to local history and released Resilience, Recovery, and Rebirth: Sustaining Hope in Trying Times, an emotional, humorous, and revealing documentary that honors the lives of the African American community, including his Fluvanna County ancestors. The film, created in partnership with the Fluvanna Arts Council and Fluvanna NAACP, features interviews with community members and historians, as well as musical performances from Odyssey of Soul, which examine the county’s past and present, including the former plantation Pleasant Grove.
Saturday 2/19. Free, 7:30pm. PVCC’s V. Earl Dickinson Theater, 501 College Dr. pvcc.edu
Afro-Puerto Rican ensemble Kadencia perform in various styles native to the Caribbean island. Supplied photo.
Island tunes: With a boisterous brass section and massive percussion, Afro-Puerto Rican ensemble Kadencia’s rhythmic sounds are a lively celebration of the Caribbean island’s culture. Playing original songs in the traditional styles of bomba and plena, the band seeks to preserve and share Puerto Rico’s native musical expression. And a splash of spirited salsa will keep the dance floor full all night long.
Saturday 11/13. $12-15, 7:30pm. PVCC, Dickinson Main Stage, 501 College Dr. pvcc.edu/fine-arts-and-performance.
Playwright and actor Lucinda McDermott brings her off-Broadway production of O'Keeffe to PVCC's Main Stage Theatre. Publicity photo
O’ yeah: You may recognize Georgia O’Keeffe’s close-up paintings of flowers, but how much do you know about her as a person? The artist comes to life in Lucinda McDermott’s one-woman play O’Keeffe!. McDermott embodies the fascinating, fiercely independent icon (who studied at UVA for five summers), and provides answers to questions about her art and legacy, as well as her complicated relationship with her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz. After a lifetime of being dismissed because of her gender, this play puts O’Keeffe front and center.
Saturday 10/9. $12-15, 7:30pm. Piedmont Virginia Community College, Main Stage Theatre, 501 College Dr., pvcc.edu.
The majority of Piedmont Virginia Community College students will not have to pay tuition and fees during the 2021-2022 school year.
PC: Skyclad aerial
While the daily decrease in coronavirus infections offers a light at the end of the tunnel, the nation’s economy continues to struggle to recover from the ongoing pandemic. Millions of Americans remain unemployed, including over 60,000 Virginia residents. Now more than ever, many are looking to start a new job or career, but may not have the right skills or education to get their foot in the door.
For people who want to return to school—or go for the first time—cost in the Charlottesville area no longer has to be a barrier. Piedmont Virginia Community College is offering free tuition and fees for the majority of its students during the 2021-2022 school year.
“There are a lot of people out there in central Virginia that are saying to themselves, ‘What am I going to do next? What’s my next job [or] career?’” says PVCC President Frank Friedman. “They need to get a new skill set and prepare themselves for the future, but don’t have the money to enroll.”
“That’s when we sat down and said, ‘What can we do to help those people?’” he says. “How can we make PVCC even more affordable?”
The new program, dubbed PVCC.4u, is open to all Virginia residents who make less than $100,000 a year, or who were laid off or furloughed due to the pandemic. To get the free ride, students need to fill out a financial aid application and enroll in at least six credit hours this fall.
Those who earn a 2.0 GPA or higher will have their spring tuition and fees covered too, saving students up to $5,000 in total.
Since the pandemic hit, PVCC students have largely been learning over Zoom. Last fall, the school allowed a small portion of its courses to begin safely meeting face-to-face, but with only a handful students in the classroom at a time.
“Those are classes that require labs, are studio art classes, or are hands-on types of classes, where you have to interact with the equipment,” says Friedman. “Try learning to be a welder online!”
But thanks to Virginia’s successful vaccine rollout, the school plans to completely “return to normal” this fall, Friedman says. All classes will be offered in-person (with masks required), along with the typical online-only courses.
[Online learning] was very convenient for students, especially those who are parents raising kids.
Frank Friedman, President of PVCC
However, he anticipates a slight increase in online offerings at PVCC. Pre-COVID, nearly a quarter of the school’s courses were already taught online, making the transition to all-virtual learning a bit easier.
“Some faculty who had not taught online before but then had to during the pandemic, they realized it was a good mode of instruction,” says Friedman. “Their students were doing well in the course, and it was very convenient for students, especially those who are parents raising kids.”
Typically when unemployment rates go up, more people enroll in community colleges. But over the past year, enrollment has decreased by about 6 percent at PVCC, which currently has around 5,000 students enrolled in credit courses. Another 3,000 are enrolled in non-credit workforce training programs.
“People didn’t know how long [the pandemic] would last, what its impact would be, what jobs would exist or not exist,” says Friedman, explaining the drop in enrollment. “And people just didn’t have money.”
To help more Virginians get back to work, the General Assembly recently passed the Get Skilled, Get a Job, Give Back initiative, which will cover state community college tuition, fees, and books for low- and middle-income students pursuing high-demand careers, including health care, information technology, manufacturing, public safety, and early childhood education. The program, which goes into effect this fall, will also provide financial assistance for necessary expenses like food, child care, and transportation.
“[G3] does not cover our students who are in what we call our transfer programs, which lead to a bachelor’s degree,” says Friedman. “That’s over 60 percent of our students.”
Thanks to stimulus money from the American Rescue Plan—combined with Pell grants, state funds, and community donations—PVCC is now able to waive tuition and fees for all students not covered by the G3 program.
While G3 has no expiration date, PVCC.4u will end after next spring. But Friedman remains hopeful the program can become permanent, pointing to President Joe Biden’s plan to make community college free nationwide.
“There is an opportunity here for Congress to act,” says Friedman. “We are very hopeful that they will.”
Known as joyful, kind, and generous with his time, chef Eric Breckoff touched a lot of lives through his contributions to the local culinary community. Supplied Photo
Patient and fair. Loved teaching. Passion for life. Joyful partner. These virtues are extolled again and again as the Charlottesville food community mourns the passing of chef and food educator Eric Breckoff, who died unexpectedly on August 16 at age 60.
Breckoff was the much-beloved inaugural director of the culinary arts program at Piedmont Virginia Community College. John Donnelly, vice president of instruction and student services at PVCC, says Breckoff was an exceptional choice to run the program.
“He loved teaching and loved what he did and was a great program head and he was so passionate about the program, the students, and teaching,” says Donnelly, who also notes how far-reaching Breckoff’s efforts into the community were. The chef connected his PVCC culinary arts program students to the Monticello Harvest Days and CATEC, through cooking demos and helping place students in jobs in their area of interest. “It’s a significant loss for the college, for the program, and the culinary arts community,” says Donnelly. “He was well known and well respected, and we’ll miss him tremendously.”
Another PVCC colleague, Ridge Schuyler, worked alongside Breckoff at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, where the culinary arts program is located.
“He was larger than life with huge passions: a passion for food, a passion for politics, and a passion for people, especially those who saw food as a way of improving their lot in life,” Schuyler says. He jokes that his proximity to Breckoff also meant the threat of an expanding waistline.
“His students would produce meals, desserts, entrées, and appetizers, and he would bring [them] to our office and stand over us till we tried everything,” says Schuyler. “He was exuberant about both the food and the people who produced it.”
And his students carried his passion forward as they began their own careers. Alicia Simmons and Vinnie Falcone learned through Breckoff’s program before taking jobs at Belmont’s Tavola restaurant, where they each rose quickly through the kitchen ranks to become sous chefs (at different times). “They arrived well-prepared for the job, and became indispensable,” says Tavola chef/owner Michael Keaveny, who says Breckoff was his first call when staffing needs arose.
Simmons, now at Restoration in Crozet, mourns the treasured instructor. “He was such an inspiring instructor,” she says. “I always looked forward to cooking beside him in the kitchen…being able to create delicious dishes every day, and experimenting with flavor combinations, while also seeing the delight on customers’ faces, [something] many young chefs dream of achieving.”
Falcone, now at Michelin-starred Rose’s Luxury in Washington, D.C., says Breckoff “couldn’t have been more fair and accommodating to everyone around him. He had the patience of a saint. He knew when he could push people. His instruction absolutely helped me get to where I am today.”
Breckoff’s wife, Patty Carrubba, remembers her husband’s zest for living life large, which included extensive traveling overseas to visit friends and family.
“We laughed every single day and I could’ve spent the next hundred years with him and never grown tired of him,” she says. “We knew that every day is a gift and that’s totally how he lived his life—he didn’t count calories, but he did take care of himself, and he loved his family, his students.”
Breckoff worked as a commercial photographer for years, and decided in his mid-30s to attend Johnson & Wales’ culinary school in Charleston, South Carolina, and then in Rhode Island, earning an MBA. Prior to working at PVCC he taught culinary arts at Reynolds Community College in Richmond.
Carrubba was recently divorced and had four children when she met Breckoff at the Foods of All Nations cheese counter. “He was buying one slice of every piece of cheese for his students. I said ‘That’s a lot of cheese.’ He said he was a chef and I said ‘I love to cook! How lucky your wife must be!’ He said he’d never been married, and I said I wasn’t married, and within two weeks we were engaged.”
Breckoff had always wanted a big family and stepped in joyfully, doing Boy Scout camping trips and putting the kids through college, pampering Carrubba throughout their marriage, and bringing her coffee in bed every day.
“He’d been focusing on work his whole life and decided he was going to find a family and we just hit it off,” she says. “At first, I thought there was something terribly wrong with some guy willing to marry me with four kids. I made him go through counseling and I asked the counselor what was wrong, and she said ‘He just totally loves you and he is wonderful!’”
Carrubba says she has been overwhelmed by the tributes and messages she’s received, some from students who graduated 10 and 15 years ago. “Eric kept tabs on everyone from his childhood on, and he valued friendships and cherished and fostered them.” Breckoff was laid to rest on his 61st birthday.
This area’s affordable housing crisis is often in the news, but what about the other side of the issue–a sustainable income? Businesses can do their part by hiring local residents, who with some assistance or training could step up to a better-paying job. The challenge is, how to find those people, match them with the right jobs, and get them the training they need.
That’s the mission of Network2Work@PVCC– the employment version of ‘it takes a village.’
Here’s how it works: Employers who have jobs paying a minimum of $25,000 ($12.50/ hour) that don’t require a college degree list their positions in the Network2Work database in one of four categories: health care, hospitality/services, transportation/logistics, and construction/skilled trades.
N2W then reaches out to its “connectors,” a web of more than 250 individuals working in local advocacy groups, fraternal organizations, churches, veterans’ programs, and so on–the kind of plugged-in people who “know everyone” in their community, and can help identify and refer potential candidates. Once the connectors identify potential candidates, N2W helps these job seekers figure out what stands between them and that particular position. Affordable transportation? Reliable child care? A driver’s license? Training? Then the program’s staff taps into its network of about 50 nonprofits and human services agencies whose assistance can help them meet those needs.
Every job seeker gets coaching and a final screening from volunteer human resources professionals to make sure they are application-ready. There’s no hiring guarantee—but when program graduates submit an application, N2W director Frank Squillace sends the employer an email flagging this candidate as someone who has already worked hard to qualify and succeed.
The beauty of the program is that it taps what’s already out there. Businesses have positions to fill–but, faced with legal restrictions and online hiring processes, employers appreciate knowing that N2W candidates have already been vetted. Government and nonprofit programs can help people overcome barriers to work, but “people need guidance through the system,” Squillace says. N2W’s staff and volunteers provide the ongoing support and encouragement that can make success possible. “And, he notes, “it’s all funded by philanthropists, grants, and local donors.”
What started as a pilot program in fall 2017 is already proving its worth. N2W began with four employers and now has 90, representing 100 positions (a position could represent several jobs, as in server or maintenance worker) and about $8.6 million in wages, according to Squillace. Businesses that have hired qualified employees through N2W range from Walmart to Farmington Country Club, and also include Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital, Linden House, UVA Medical Center, Design Electric, and L.A. Lacy.
Piedmont Housing Alliance, a nonprofit providing housing, counseling, community development, and management services to low-income communities in this area, has hired maintenance and administrative staff through the program. “Our partnership with Network2Work helps us address the affordable housing shortage here,” says Deputy Director Karen Klick, noting that its housing counselors also serve among N2W’s connectors.
More than 90 percent of N2W’s graduates have found jobs, two-thirds of which pay more than $25,000 a year; 39 percent of graduates are single mothers. And N2W staff follow up and support graduates for a year after hiring.
N2W is the brainchild of Ridge Schuyler– author of the Orange Dot Project report on poverty in the city, founder of the Charlottesville Works initiative, and now dean of Piedmont Virginia Community College’s Division of Community Self-Sufficiency Programs, of which N2W is one. Its innovative approach has already attracted attention outside our area; Squillace says state officials have expressed interest in taking the N2W model to other community colleges around Virginia.
It’s an exciting possibility, says Squillace: “We’re changing the face of poverty.”
Charlottesville Ballet brings visions of sugar plums to the PVCC stage. Publicity photo
After a fancy Christmas Eve party, Clara falls asleep with a nutcracker in her arms. As she dreams, visions of the Sugar Plum Fairy, a Nutcracker Prince, a Mouse King, Arabian dancers and Mother Ginger with her Polichinelles dance en pointe in her head. Charlottesville Ballet presents a 90-minute version of The Nutcracker, choreographed to Tchaikovsky’s score, that perfectly captures the magic and dreamy anticipation of the holiday season.
Through December 22. $20-75, times vary. V. Earl Dickinson Building at PVCC, 501 College Dr. 227-7592.
Retired Charlottesville fire chief Charles Werner, a longtime drone hobbyist, became interested in using them for search and rescue purposes after seeing them used to look for missing person Hannah Graham in 2014. Photo: Eze Amos
Flying drones is no longer just for hobbyists in Albemarle. Earlier this month, the county was gifted a DJI Phantom 3—its first unmanned aircraft system for search and rescue purposes.
David King, who donated the drone, is a founder of King Family Vineyards, a longtime pilot and attorney, and a current search and rescue team member and reserve deputy with the Albemarle Sheriff’s Office. He and a team of those working to incorporate this new technology locally have practiced flying and run missing person simulations on his farm in Crozet.
Though drone users don’t need the county’s permission to use their aircrafts, for the Sheriff’s Office to routinely use unmanned aerial systems, they must be owned by the county and registered with the Federal Aviation Administration. King’s gift made that possible, says Board of Supervisors Chair Liz Palmer.
King was at a 2015 legal conference in Wise, Virginia, in which drones were discussed, and “it became clear to me that it was an emerging technology that would be very useful to the people who do the [searching],” he says. He immediately became interested in pursuing them. “The only purpose of this is to give the troops on the ground—the real heroes—a useful tool,” he says. “It’s not a silver wbullet, it’s only to help them do their job.”
Charles Werner, an unmanned aircraft systems adviser for the state and former city fire chief, also has been a major player in introducing this technology in our area. As a hobbyist, he has owned a drone for years, but he became interested in its ability to aid in search and rescue missions when Hannah Graham went missing in 2014. Though she was not located by an aircraft, he said it potentially reduced search time by thousands of hours.
“It revealed the value that could be benefited from searching hundreds, if not thousands, of acres of land,” he says. After retiring, he joined the search and rescue team.
But he acknowledges there are concerns with the technology.
“We’re trying to be very diligent in the issue of privacy,” Werner says. “Because of the concerns of being spied on, that’s something we, at all costs, are trying to steer away from.”
He says the drones will not be used for law enforcement or surveillance, but he does intend to use them to provide situational awareness in the instance of a natural disaster or major flood when it would be too dangerous to put a human in a boat. “It immediately gives you the ability to see the lay of the land,” Werner adds.
Around 80 percent of missing people are found within two miles of where they were lost, according to Werner. From the air, a drone can cover that distance quickly, even searching mountains or rough terrain that humans can’t access.
Says Werner, “If you have a situation where you have a lost child near a body of water, it becomes paramount.” In simulations his team did at King Family Vineyards, Werner says the lost children they were searching for were often found within two minutes.
“I think during our experimentation, we validated that it’s going to have a huge impact on how much we’re able to see and the areas we’re able to cover,” he says.
Also using King’s farm for practice are students at Piedmont Virginia Community College, where some of the first courses in the country are now being offered to certify search and rescue responders in operating drones.
Similarly, U.S. senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced last week that the National Science Foundation awarded the Old Dominion University Research Foundation almost $1 million for the purpose of advancing drone technology training in local colleges.
