A corn canine and a trip on the 100-foot-tall Large Wheel. Cheering on the racing pigs. Dancing to stay music on the free leisure stage. Snapping a photograph in entrance of a 1,000-pound pumpkin. The enjoyable, the livestock, the meals, the competitions — the State Honest of Virginia, which runs from Sept. 23 to Oct. 2, 2022 at The Meadow Occasion Park, means many various issues to completely different folks. For regional households, it’s a beloved annual custom to look ahead to because the seasons change from summer season into fall.
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“The honest is a good place to get pleasure from an genuine expertise,” says Marlene Pierson-Jolliffe, the State Honest of Virginia’s government director and vp of operations on the Meadow Occasion Park. “Many households, particularly these in city areas, are so faraway from agriculture and the way their meals is grown. The honest just isn’t manufactured; it’s not one thing you see on tv or in your telephone. It’s a healthful, immersive expertise that takes in all 5 senses.”
Persons are additionally studying…
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For greater than 100 years, guests have flocked to the State Honest of Virginia to participate in established traditions like livestock competitions and quilt exhibits and to create some new traditions of their very personal.
“For example, some households would possibly resolve to fulfill underneath a sure tree yearly or to look at the sundown from a selected spot on the occasion,” Pierson-Jolliffe factors out.
There’s one thing on the State Honest of Virginia that’s interesting for all ages. For the youngest guests, the devoted Kidway space gives spinning teacups, flying elephants and different small-scale rides with a lot of enjoyable and flashing lights multi functional compact space. Teenagers are likely to gravitate towards Halfway Insanity, the place they will hop on the large thrill rides and problem their buddies to carnival video games. In the meantime, mother and father and different adults can be happy to seize a craft beer or a glass of wine to sip whereas procuring wares from a various group of honest distributors.
“Seniors appear to benefit from the conventional agriculture reveals and aggressive arts, however principally, they simply love sharing the entire honest expertise with their children and grandkids,” Pierson-Jolliffe provides.
Many guests wait all 12 months to feast on funnel cake, barbecued rooster, corn on the cob, sirloin suggestions and deep-fried cookies. However with tasty new additions this 12 months like Brazilian-style grilled steak or rooster served in a pineapple bowl, waffle tacos, mini donuts, and a macaroni and cheese bar with a choice of topping decisions, guests simply would possibly come away with a brand new favourite honest meals.
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The State Honest of Virginia additionally accommodates households in considerate methods by offering consolation stations for nursing moms, relaxation areas conveniently stationed all through the grounds and free admission for kids ages 4 and underneath.
The honest employees is all the time searching for methods to introduce new leisure to wow households. “In our continued effort to offer leisure worth to our visitors, we’ve invested in a first-class aerial artist-focused circus,” says Pierson-Jolliffe. “It’s a high-end manufacturing and the honest will characteristic three exhibits every day with a seating capability of 700 per present.”
Honest goers may even expertise an expanded livestock facility, strolling performers, further important stage performances and a petting zoo within the common Younger MacDonald’s exhibit. All simple methods to make some family-fun recollections on the State Honest of Virginia.
The 2022 State Honest of Virginia runs Sept. 23 to Oct. 2, 2022 on the Meadow Occasion Park in Doswell. For tickets and occasion info, go to statefairva.org.
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UCLA softball erased a four-run deficit in a 7-6 walk-off victory against Virginia Tech in the 2024 NCAA Los Angeles Regional on May 18, 2024. The 6-seeded Bruins will play in the Regional final on Sunday, May 19 at 3 p.m. PT.
Look, it’s a slow news day outside of Valhalla. That’s generally what happens on May 18. People think the Dog Days of Summer start in July, but that ain’t true. They start right around now.
Thankfully, though, we have one psycho on the University of Virginia baseball team to fill the void. Now, did he fire a no-no? No. Get in a fight? Nope. Say something stupid? Not that I know of.
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What he did, though, tops all of those things. It has my brain in an absolute pretzel this afternoon. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and I’m not sure if this kid’s an idiot … or possibly a genius.
Luckily, it was all caught on camera – so we’ll let you, the fine folks of Outkick, decide:
Virginia player flips the banana game on its head
It’s just stunning, right? I’ve never, in my life, seen someone attack a banana like that. It’s like the Matrix, or Inception. I know what I’m watching, but my mind can’t really comprehend it.
Do people eat bananas this way? I mean, you’re essentially eating it like corn on the cob, right? That’s the idea. Going the horizontal route with a banana instead of the mainstream vertical way is such a diabolical move, I don’t know whether he’s brilliant or should be immediately kicked off the team.
Speaking of him …. my context clues and Big J digging tell me this lunatic is probably pitcher Jack O’Connor. He commented on the above video, via Instagram, “Banana on the cob.” That tells me pretty much all I need to know.
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Anyway, remember this moment from The Office? This is how I feel after watching Jack here maul that banana.
Yeah, I just don’t get it. This kid from Virginia has me all over the place today. My toddler eats like six bananas a day. Do I get her started young and make the switch now, or will she just be mocked for the rest of her life if I do that?
Now, I will say – most of America seems to be disgusted with this. This video has gone viral this afternoon, and 99% of the comments think he’s a lunatic.
But then again, Twitter is normally not real life. Whenever I see something popping off on Twitter, I go the opposite direction, because 99 times out of 100, that’s the right answer.
Anyway, I may dabble with this move at some point today and get back to y’all. Stay tuned.
Nearly 20 million people gained health-insurance coverage between 2010 and 2016 under the Affordable Care Act. But about half of insured adults worry about affording their monthly premiums, while roughly the same number worry about affording their deductibles. At least six states don’t include dental coverage in Medicaid, and 10 still refuse to expand Medicaid to low-income adults under the ACA. Many people with addiction never get treatment.
Religious groups have stepped in to offer help—food, community support, medical and dental care—to the desperate.
Over nine months last year, the photographer Matt Eich documented the efforts of five such organizations in his home state of Virginia. These groups operate out of trailers and formerly abandoned buildings; they are led by pastors, nuns, reverends and imams. In many cases, they are the most trusted members of their communities, and they fill care gaps others can’t or won’t. —Bryce Covert
The Health Wagon
Wise, Virginia
The Health Wagon is the oldest mobile free clinic in the country. It was founded in 1980 by Sister Bernie Kenny, a Catholic nun and nurse practitioner, who first offered care out of a Volkswagen Beetle. Today it has four mobile units that operate out of RVs, plus two buildings that offer medical and dental care. It plans to soon open the first nonprofit pharmacy in the region.
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This is Appalachia—the western tip of the state, near the Kentucky border. The place has been hit hard by the opioid crisis, and residents suffer from high rates of cardiovascular disease, mental-health problems, diabetes, asthma, and cancer. “We’re the Lung Belt, we’re the Heart Belt, we’re the Kidney-Stone Belt,” Teresa Owens Tyson, who has been with the clinic since its early days and is now its CEO, told me. Most of the people the Health Wagon serves either don’t have insurance or have such high copays and deductibles that they can’t afford to use their policies. Tyson said she’s seen lines of people 1,600 deep waiting at the clinic at 6 a.m. Dental services are in particularly high demand: A 12-year-old recently came in whose teeth were so decayed, the child already needed dentures.
The Rec
Luray, Virginia
Reverend Audre King grew up in Luray. He went away to college, got married, and was living hours away in Northern Virginia when he says God told him in a dream to go back home and begin a ministry there.
He tried to buy a long-abandoned building on his childhood block, but no bank would give him a loan. Finally, the owner agreed to sell it to him for cheap if he used it to serve the community. Digging out all of the dirt and dead animals and hooking the place up to electricity and water took months, but in 2017, the Rec was up and running.
It now serves hundreds of hot meals in area where many people live in motels without kitchens. It also provides mental-health programming, kids’ activities, a computer lab, and fitness classes. “Our goal is that anything, for whatever reason, the town or county can’t or won’t be able to fund—a resource they won’t provide—we want to be that help,” King told me.
All of its services are provided almost entirely by volunteers; the only person who gets paid is a bus driver who transports kids from their schools and homes to the Rec and back. King doesn’t take a salary for either the Rec or at the Eternal Restoration Church of God in Christ, where he serves as minister; he works for a gas company.
When he preaches at the church, he’s teaching the Gospel, he told me; but at the Rec, he’s “living the Gospel.” He pointed to Matthew 25:35–40: “For I was hungry and you gave me food … I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me.”
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CrossOver Healthcare Ministry
Richmond, Virginia
Last fiscal year, CrossOver treated more than 6,700 patients, over half of whom came from other countries as immigrants and refugees. Most undocumented immigrants can’t access Medicaid; those who can may still struggle to navigate the complex health-care system, especially if English isn’t their first language. The interdenominational group runs two free clinics offering primary care as well as cardiology and pulmonology, OB-GYN care, dental and vision care, behavioral-health services, pediatric care for children over 3, and a low-cost pharmacy. CrossOver relies on more than 400 volunteers to see patients, and still can’t open up enough appointments for everyone who comes seeking care: “We turn away about 30 to 35 people a week,” Julie Bilodeau, the group’s CEO, told me.
Adams Compassionate Healthcare Network
Chantilly, Virginia
About 10 years ago, Yahya Alvi applied for a job at the Adams Compassionate Healthcare Network, half an hour from Washington, D.C. The organization’s president told him that his dream was to open a free clinic. “That is my passion,” Alvi responded. He started by securing empty space at a nearby mosque and taking free equipment from a clinic that was giving it away. At the beginning, he employed only one doctor and himself, and the clinic was open just one day a week.
Today, it operates six days a week and has two paid nurse practitioners in addition to the two doctors. The clinic was founded by Muslims, but it accepts anyone without insurance or the money to pay for medical care, from anywhere in the country and practicing any religion. “Our religion says that all human beings are created by God almighty,” Alvi told me. “And all deserve equal treatment.”
Madam Russell United Methodist
Saltville, Virginia
One day in 2021, Steve Hunt was on the side of the road, trying to hitchhike to a grocery store about seven miles from his home in Saltville, Virginia. Hunt had lost his sight a few years earlier, after an infection in his leg went septic and he fell and knocked his retinas loose. Lisa Bryant saw him when she pulled up at a stop sign. She’s a pastor, and she had just finished a service at one church and had to be at another in an hour. She was in a hurry. But just the week before, she had preached about Jesus calling his followers to bring the blind and suffering to him. She gave Hunt a ride.
The interaction came at a crucial time for Hunt. “I was at bottom at that point,” he told me. His house was strewn with glass shards because he kept breaking things. He was struggling with addiction. “Everything was falling down around me, mentally and emotionally,” he said. “I was asking God to kill me that day she picked me up.”
Instead, Hunt started going to the new 12-step program Bryant had started at her main church, Madam Russell United Methodist. “They just kind of pulled around me, supported me,” he said of the congregation. He’s helped Bryant expand that program, the only one in a town where opioid use is rife but all the addiction-recovery programs are oversubscribed. Bryant has also set up community-service opportunities at her church for people convicted of drug offenses, and is working to secure transitional housing for people dealing with addiction.
Bryant doesn’t think the point of being a Christian is just to get to heaven after death, but to see the kingdom of heaven on Earth, too. She’s realized that “giving these people a new community, a healthy community, is one of the best things we can do for them,” she said. “We all need each other. That’s just how we’re created.”
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Support for this story was provided by the Magnum Foundation, in partnership with the Commonwealth Fund.