Category: Harrisonburg Issues
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Even recycling looks a little different in a pandemic
The city, earlier this month, reopened its recycling center on Beery Road after a more than 11-week hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For some residents, it was a welcome return to help clear the backlog of cardboard, cans and plastic containers. Others have been seeking out the mobile recycling unit — which kept operating — each week to make sure they’re doing their part for the environment.
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How one conversation helped save area farmers markets this year
Back in the early days of COVID-19, neighbors Josie Showalter and Seán McCarthy were walking their dogs when the conversation shifted to the pandemic’s economic effects. Showalter, the manager of the Harrisonburg Farmers Market, told McCarthy, a JMU professor, about how customers were staying home — and away from the farmers market.
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What happens when the head of a retirement community gets diagnosed with COVID-19?
When Rodney Alderfer, president of the Bridgewater Retirement Community, found out he had tested positive for COVID-19 on June 2, he knew that he and the senior leadership team with whom he worked had to quarantine for two weeks to protect each other, as well as the community’s residents — who, because of their age, are among those most at risk.
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Hburg Police Department makes changes in response to protests and suggestions
The Harrisonburg Police Department added a provision to its use-of-force policy as part of changes in response to recent community feedback and racial justice efforts, Chief Eric English told the city council Tuesday.
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Here’s a time capsule of some of Harrisonburg’s COVID-19 time capsules
JMU students created a podcast series. One parent is keeping an illustrated journal. The pandemic has inspired an 8-year-old to be his neighborhood’s reporter. And middle school students are crafting poetry to capture the moment. While the long-term effects of the current crisis are still unclear, these creators are curating a kind of time capsule for themselves, their friends and family and future generations who might inevitably ask, “Grandma, what was Coronavirus like?”
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With CARES Act funding, city housing agency launches drive to recruit landlords
Landlords in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County have an opportunity to get some guaranteed on-time rent payments and a few other incentives while also lending a helping hand to some of the area’s most vulnerable residents.
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Local reports of child and domestic abuse during COVID lockdown mirror wider trends
For people whose homes aren’t safe places, COVID-19 and the subsequent stay-at-home orders represent a dangerous double bind: unsafe to leave, unsafe to stay. Over the past three months, local reports of domestic violence are on the rise. Meanwhile, child abuse or neglect reports have declined, leaving local responders bracing for a spike in cases that may have gone unnoticed during the spring.
On and off campus, pressure mounts to rename several buildings at JMU
In a public ceremony in the fall of 1917, six buildings on Bluestone Hill — the center of campus for what was then the State Normal and Industrial School for Women — were renamed. And for the last 103 years, four of the six have borne the monikers of men who were slaveowners or confederates.
