Saturday, September 29, 2012

The New Ballou Senior High School

Wow, check out the plans for the new Ballou Senior High School. This is going to be amazing...almost makes me want to be in highschool again!

Monday, September 10, 2012

"We Are Anacostia" Campaign!!!

Art of War Concept: He whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious.
________________________________________________________________________________

The residents of Historic Anacostia launched the “We Are Anacostia” Campaign last week. On a recent Sunday afternoon an email went out to our neighborhood listserv to meet up on Martin Luther King Jr. Ave next to the Old Furniture Warehouse for a photo shoot.

The purpose of the photo shoot was to launch our “We Are Anacostia” campaign  in an effort to encourage Busboys & Poets to open their 5th location in our neighborhood. As some may know, there has been a rumor circling that Andy Shallal from Busboys & Poets has been considering Anacostia to open a new location. This rumor was confirmed at “Breaking into the Restaurant Business” seminar hosted by the River East Emerging Leaders earlier this summer.

The goal was to promote Busboys, but it was also done in an effort to present the Anacostia community as a great place to live, raise your family and to open businesses.

Besides taking photos, it was a great way to catch up with folks and talk about life. That is the great thing about living in our neighborhood – it is truly a community – where we are all about working together to find unique ways to improve the quality of life in our neighborhood.

I am so proud of this effort by my neighbors on so many different levels. I am working on an article to dig a little deeper into the meaning of this campaign.

I know it is exciting to hear that Busboys may be locating to Anacostia and yes we should continue to promote our neighborhood to attract even more retail and restaurants. But I know there is a lot of talent East of the River -- we also should consider partnering up to open businesses. We don’t have to wait on the city or others to invest in our community. We can do it ourselves. I know there are other restaurant and retail entrepreneurs out there and if given the chance and mentored that you can open up your own Busboys style restaurant. Stay tuned to a follow up blog post on “We Are Anacostia” Campaign!

We are asking everyone to drop off a postcard at any Busboys & Poets Restaurant you visit.
You can pick up your postcards at the HABA meeting this Thursday at 7pm.
The meeting will be held at the Anacostia UPO Center - 1649 Good Hope Rd.

I can't wait to see a
"We Are Congress Heights, Bellevue, Washington Highlands and Fairlawn" Campaign!