DCUM Weblog

This article was provided by the Park View Farmers Market

Launched in January 2020 in the heart of D.C.’s Park View neighborhood, the Park View Farmers Market (PVFM) aims to provide economic opportunity to local entrepreneurs and increase access to local food through a vibrant community marketplace. PVFM’s unique location, inside of Hook Hall, gives the market a special quality and offers an expansive indoor space for community members to safely and comfortably shop for fresh food, while building lasting relationships with local makers, growers, and neighbors. With Hook Hall’s bar open during the market, you can even sip on a beer or Bloody Mary while you shop!

PVFM was forced to halt operations in March 2020 due to COVID-19 – just two months after its grand opening. Its reopening this past February was met with much excitement from the community, as people are once again able to support the market’s rotation of incredible vendors. With local farmers, bakers, and artisans, you can expect to find fresh produce, pickles, baked goods, hot foods, teas, spices, and foods that reflect our diverse community, as well as skincare, candles, and so much more! This summer, PVFM is thrilled to welcome back family-friendly programming to the market once again, including live music, games, sing-alongs & more!

Brookings recently released a report on DC Public Schools. This report, "We all want what’s best for our kids", uses data from 10 years worth of posts in the DC Public and Public Charter Schools forum. My wife and I own and operate the DC Urban Moms and Dads website and are frequent participants in the DC Schools forum. Moreover, we have two sons who both attended a DC Public Charter School. One attended and one still attends DC Public Schools. Therefore, we know well both the DC public school system and the DC Schools forum.

Having read the report in detail, I believe that the research for this report was lazy, the analysis is flawed, and the conclusions are wrong. The entire report is based on flawed analysis -- word frequency analysis in which keywords are connected to school names -- a technique that does not take context into account. In fact, the report's examples show such context-based errors. The measures of school attention suffer from uncorrected bias due to school size and the uneven geographic sample representation. For instance, Alice Deal Middle School and Woodrow Wilson High School are two of the largest schools in the DCPS system and the in-bounds school for a large percentage of the posters. The finding that they are the two most discussed schools is exactly what would be expected.

This is a guest post by Kara Holinski

Many fitness lovers and instructors have had a hard time of late with gym closures and limitations or do not feel comfortable going back to the gym/studios given the current climate. We know that this has been even harder for parents, who have often used fitness as a time for self-care and to improve mental health. Fitness class fanatics and DC residents Kara Holinski and Justin Hunter started OutFit because they wanted to get back to fitness classes, but were not yet comfortable returning to the studio. In addition, they noticed that many incredible local instructors had been furloughed or had reduced classes, as in-person fitness was one of the industries hit hard by the pandemic.

As a result, they decided to develop a marketplace where instructors can post classes in local D.C. parks and participants can sign up. Since things have gotten colder, they have launched a semi-permanent heated tent at Dumbarton House (between Georgetown and Dupont on 27th and Q). Safety is OutFit’s #1 priority, so the tent is completely open so it is property ventilated, masks are required, and stations are distanced at least 8 feet. To keep people toasty, there are 5 industrial grade heaters, which raise the temperature in the tent +25 degrees F, and allow for t-shirts to be worn during yoga in December. In addition, there is parking at the location.

This is a guest post authored by Kelsey Lents.

What if I were to tell you that, as a working mom or dad, you can have your cake and eat it too – that putting your child’s needs front and center shouldn't mean leaving yours behind?

Our generation graduated into the workforce amidst a cultural shift. Gone were pre-defined hours, roles and a steady, yet predictable path. In its place, we ushered in frequent career moves and blurred lines between work and home. I embraced that mindset wholeheartedly – and then my son was born. Suddenly I discovered that change and empowerment in the workforce is not always synonymous with change and empowerment for working parents. There are now companies whose mission it is to provide parents with both the physical and emotional resources to control and define their preferred work-life relationship. Two Birds, the only licensed childcare center with coworking space and other parent-friendly amenities, is one such company.

Fatherhood or even impending fatherhood unleashes lots of emotions in most men. For those of an artistic persuasion, emotions translate into inspiration and for those with musical talents, inspiration leads to songs. Two recent contributions to the "fatherhood" genre are from local Washington, DC singer/songwriter Collin Warren whose first baby (a boy) will be born any day now.

Of course, songwriters being inspired by the birth of their children is such a cliché that most of you are probably stifling groans (the rest are making no attempt at stifling). But, keep an open mind. For every "With Arms Wide Open" there is a "Closing Time" that -- without Dan Wilson's confession -- I couldn't have identified as a fatherhood song.

Too few people take the steps necessary to protect their health, their assets and their loved ones. When it comes to medical decisions, people mistakenly think that such matters only apply to the elderly or to those with known health problems. As an estate planning attorney, I have yet to speak with a parent that has a medical directive, which is also known as a living will, in place for their college age child.

This could be a disastrous oversight for children. When a child is younger than eighteen years old, they are a child under the law and their parents are empowered to act on the child’s behalf. Once the child turns eighteen, they have become an adult under the law and are now empowered to make his or her own decision. Parents mistakenly believe that when their child goes to college they will still be able to make medical and other important decisions for them. Under a law referred to as HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), a parent must get the consent of the child in order to make medical decisions for their child.

Maria and I have decided to shutdown the DC Urban Moms Mailing list. The mailing list was launched in 2002 and rapidly grew to be a popular resource for DC area parents, inspiring our successful website. However, in recent years use of the list has declined while the difficulty of dealing with the anti-spam policies of large email providers has increased. We've finally reached the point where the effort to maintain the list is greater than the benefits of doing so.

The very first email sent to the list was by our friend Sharon Winick on March 11, 2002. Sharon had conceived of the idea of arranging get-togethers for new moms. Sharon's initial efforts were so successful that keeping everyone informed about events became a bit of a challenge. We created a mailing list as an efficient means of distributing information about upcoming events. Sharon's second message announced the time and location of one of the group's periodic "Family Days".

I'm sorry that you are having a hard time. However, can you step back and see how arrogant you (likely) were when you started just a few weeks ago? DCPS attracts/recruits urban teaching 'veterans' who assume that they can do what DCPS teachers cannot accomplish. It drives me nuts. Every year I see you all start the year with smug attitudes and then bail. Turns out that this is a tough as hell place to teach.

This is my first year teaching ever. I wasn't smug at all. I didn't assume much. I wanted to teach here, because I grew up here. I received a crappy education. My teachers used to turn on a video and walk out of the room. I wasn't prepared for college. Somehow I made it anyway. I wanted to help people who look like me see a world outside of the bubble that they know. I'm not leaving because it's "tough as hell." This place is hell.

One of the most frequent questions I get asked about the DC Urban Moms and Dads website is "what were the most memorable discussion?" That's not as easy of a question as you would think because I read so many posts each day that they all start to blur together after a while. Also, while there is sort of a cottage industry on DCUM of posting about old threads, I'm not actually a fan of that tendency. Nevertheless, here are a few threads that have made an impression on me for various reasons:

This board and I have been through a lot. This was a very short thread that most people probably didn't read and wouldn't remember if they did. But, I appreciated it because it illustrated how the website could have a positive impact on someone's life. It also validated our decision to move away from strictly parenting topics and to create forums on broader issues such as finance and relationships.

One of the ramifications of operating a high-profile parenting website is a constant stream of email about new parenting products or services. Many are interesting and things in which I think our users might be interested. Some are not. Then, there are a few, a very few, that just blow me away. Cheryl Zandt's idea for "Junior's Clubhouse" is one of those. Described as "a state-of-the-art indoor playground and movement studio for kids", when I saw what was planned for Junior's Clubhouse, my reaction was "heck with the kids, I want to play there".

Zandt has identified a location in the Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood in downtown DC and drafted plans for a rainforest-themed play area divided between sections for babies and older kids (up to age 12). To raise funds for securing her lease, Zandt has been running a campaign on Fundable.