Evidence Mounts For Towns and New Centers

Northern Virginia Snow and another vote to live in towns and centers (and create new ones):
Just spoke with sis-in-law in Ashburn, near Leesburg and Dulles Airport--burried, but able to get to stores only with 4-wheel drives.

Her comment struck me--"Of course anyone in DC or Arlington can get what they want because they can walk to their stores." Hmmmmm...

Larger Storms, Fuel Price Increases/Shortages and Less Dough for Infrastructure--says we better look to different "living arrangements". Who's ready to make a business out of this? Local banks, locally-owned businesses, smaller industry/manufacturing, nonprofits, local transit....

Oak Grove Free-Throw Competition Raises over $2,000 for Haiti Relief

By Tom Doolittle
Feb. 8, 2010

Oak Grove Elementary, a Lakeside High School feeder, hosted “Hoops for Haiti”,

Pictured: Oak Grove Phys Ed Teacher Anne Hasse with some shooters (indoors due to weather)

....a basketball shooting contest to raise money for the Red Cross efforts in Haiti this past Saturday, February 6. This was on the heels of the school’s “Caps for Haiti” benefit just after the January 12, 2010 earthquake leveled the island nation, inspiring an unparalleled international funding drive.

Oak Grove parent Sarah Guzman, and physical education teacher Anne Haase were running things when I shot my free-throws (28 for 50 on a 9.5 foot rim) and several Lakeside National Honor Society students were helping out. Guzman said the Oak Grove student council organized the event. Haase, a Sandy Springs resident, has taught at Oak Grove for 17 years.

Ms. Guzman, with two children at Oak Grove and one at In Town Community Church middle school (Lavista Road near Toco Hills), said the event attracted 120 “shooters” and raised $2,098. “Caps for Haiti” was also a $2,000 fundraiser.

The competition had all of the earmarks of a well-coordinated community event, with PR help and participants from Clairmont Presbyterian Church. The church hosts the “Top of the Key” basketball player development program, very popular along DeKalb’s portion of the I-85 Northeast Atlanta and Lavista/Briarcliff Corridors. Check out http://www.topofthekey.com/  or go to the church’s “Parish Life” website for information about youth basketball.

The Oak Grove event also included a surprise show by the young rock band, “Frets on Fire”, three Oak Grove and one Henderson Middle School students who have studied with “Chicago Joe Jones”, who runs a popular rock and blues camp near I-85 and Monroe Avenue. His young bands and others get their live show experience at Maddy’s, a ribs and Blues joint in Decatur.

“Frets” has played at the Memphis International Blues Festival, so if anyone wants to encourage young talent at a local event, call band manager/parent Eric Reinhart at

(404) 663-0225 and see what the band and followers are up to at www.myspace.com/fretsonfireband


The author and family are 17-year Northlake residents, children having attended Lakeside High School. Doolittle was the founding treasurer of Northlake Community Alliance, Inc., authored its 501-c-3 application to the IRS for charitable status and incorporation documents with the Secretary of State. He also ran the Northlake Business forum and wrote “The Northlake Romance” column for Community Review/Journal newspapers, contributes research to Henderson Middle School’s Henderson (History) Project and Northlake news to GoDeKalb.com.