Virginia

How this Virginia Tech legend is sharing hope with ladybugs

Published

2 years ago

April 22, 2022

How this Virginia Tech legend is sharing hope with ladybugs

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Tech followers know Jon Laaser and know that his tenure because the voice of the Hokies ended abruptly final 12 months.

This ending was not deliberate, a minimum of not by Laaser himself. Nonetheless, it has allowed him to channel his efforts and energies into what he actually believes he was placed on Earth to do – assist those that might have some hassle serving to themselves.

In response to legend, a ladybug is a logo of luck and hope. Jon and Renee Laaser are hoping to make it one in all empathy and understanding as effectively.

The previous voice of the Hokies began his Clear Mountain Air marketing campaign in Blacksburg final fall, promoting t-shirts and different gadgets along with his catchphrase as a solution to elevate cash and consciousness about psychological well being amongst school athletes.

It took off in a means the Laasers could not have imagined.

“We simply thought folks had been being pleasant and being type to purchase our shirts and being good mates and supporters of Jon. However then folks began telling us their tales, my spouse suffered from melancholy or I had somebody in my household take their life,” Renee stated.

“You get into the psychological well being area and into being susceptible and sincere about your personal stuff and the folks that come into your life has simply been unbelievable. That is the place it began,” Jon stated.

The success had the 2 of them pondering increasingly more about how they might assist ease the burden on an overworked psychological well being system within the nation.

As many as 25% of individuals looking for assist can wait greater than three months to see an expert. For Laaser, that situation struck very near dwelling over the vacations when a member of the family was hospitalized for injuring herself attributable to stress.

“For 2 days, sat within the ER, ready for a mattress at a facility. When that occurred over the vacations, we had been like, we’ve got to get off the bench and get into the sport,” Jon stated.

So Jon and Renee based Laaser’s Ladybug Society, geared toward elevating cash and consciousness for the issue, particularly the place kids are involved. They hoped to handle psychological well being points at youthful ages in an effort to maintain them from turning into greater issues once they change into adults.

“We wish to say water the roots and never the leaves. What which means is to attempt to get psychological well being assist and personnel into the colleges in order that when a five-year-old or a seven-year-old into their teen years they usually’re having points of their life and it is so omnipresent with the place we’re in our society that they will truly get that assist proper then,” Jon stated.

Nonetheless, they cannot simply snap their fingers and have the assistance able to go.

They’re beginning with smaller native occasions, like a pickleball event later this summer time and extra deliberate for later within the 12 months.

The funds will initially go to assist faculty packages in Hanover, however the aim is to have the ability to assist faculty programs and packages throughout Central Virginia.

“Extra individuals are speaking about it and opening up and that is nice. However now we even have to repair it and deal with it and are available again as a group and lean on one another,” Renee stated.

“When any person sees the ladybug shirt, would not should be ours with something on it, then they know there are folks on the market that wish to have that dialog,” Jon stated.

Laaser stepped away from his job with the Hokies earlier this 12 months and is now targeted solely on this new undertaking. He might be a case research in making a troublesome choice that results in a larger objective sooner or later.

“Folks that suppose it was straightforward for me to go away, to make that call, it is the toughest factor I’ve ever accomplished,” Jon stated.

“It has been rejuvenating, I would say, as a result of each day we get up and there is a new problem and a brand new aim. We’re studying extra and we all know that all the pieces we’re doing is for a superb trigger and a superb cause,” Renee stated.

Jon’s father Mark was a pioneer within the discipline of counseling and psychological well being consciousness. His passing in September of 2019 started Jon’s change in priorities and renewed curiosity in serving to others discover their very own ladybugs.

“He did one thing very related in his life across the similar age the place he wasn’t positive if that was the suitable path when it comes to the talking and the writing and the books and all the pieces that he did. Optimistically, I am not him however I would wish to be related,” Jon stated.

Jon and Renee don’t have a web site up and operating but however you’ll find details about what the 2 are as much as on Fb.

Their pickleball occasion shall be on June 11 and 12 in Chesterfield and they’ll have extra data quickly about upcoming occasions.

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Virginia

Virginia House votes to repeal restrictions on military tuition program

Published

6 hours ago

June 28, 2024

Press Room

Virginia House votes to repeal restrictions on military tuition program

RICHMOND — Virginia’s House of Delegates voted unanimously Friday to repeal restrictions recently imposed on a college tuition program for military families, but Senate leaders do not intend to take the bill up when that chamber meets Monday, saying they want to limit any repeal to one year.

The House, Senate and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) all agreed to a state budget in May that included language to rein in the fast-growing program, which waives tuition and fees at public colleges and universities for the spouses and children of veterans who were disabled or killed in the line of duty.

Created in 1930 to aid the families of World War I veterans, the program has expanded over the years to include out-of-state residents, graduate students and relatives of service members with non-combat-related injuries. The price tag has risen exponentially in recent years, from $12 million in 2019 to more than $65 million last year. Universities have borne the cost or passed it to other students.

Amid warnings that the program was unsustainable, legislators and Youngkin agreed to new restrictions, which require participants to tap federal aid, such as Pell Grants, before accessing the state program, and limit eligibility to Virginia residents pursuing undergraduate degrees.

They also require military families to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which uses a formula to calculate how much families can afford to pay for higher education. The wealthiest participants would pay a portion of the “expected family contribution,” expected to be capped at about $3,750 a year.

Current participants were grandfathered in, as was anyone who applied to college before May 15 under the budget language, which also provides $20 million to colleges and universities to offset waiver costs.

Those changes drew swift and vocal pushback from military families, leading Youngkin and the Democrats who lead the House and Senate to promise fixes. But they have not been on the same page about just what to do.

Youngkin and the House have favored fully repealing the restrictions until the issue can be studied, while Senate leaders have leaned toward more limited tinkering.

The House gathered for about an hour Friday to pass a bill to repeal the changes and provide $20 million a year for the next two fiscal years to cover some of the cost.

“It’s often been said if you find yourself in a hole you don’t want to be in, stop digging. Mr. Speaker, today I’m glad that we stopped digging,” Del. Mike A. Cherry (R-Colonial Heights) said on the floor ahead of the vote, praising Democratic and Republican leaders who’d pledged to “not weaponize” the issue.

But Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) said that the measure will not move forward in the Senate, which on Monday will meet for a second time to try to advance its own fix.

“It will not be considered,” he said.

Senate leaders are backing a new bill to postpone the restrictions until July 1, 2025, provide $65 million over the next 12 months to cover the cost, and require the state’s Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission to review the program and make recommendations by Sept. 1.

“We’re willing to repeal the new restrictions for one year … and use the surplus to take the burden off other students who are currently funding the program,” Surovell said.

House Speaker Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) said he was confident the two sides will eventually work out their differences.

“Regardless of what happens on Monday, we’re very, very close in concept,” Scott said. “I think everybody recognizes that the way the program is designed now, it can’t go on like that. But we want to make sure that we get it right.”

Scott said he would support means-testing and other restrictions once the issue has been fully studied.

“I’m a disabled veteran as well. I can afford to pay for my daughter’s tuition,” he said. “So I think we need to do some means-testing. We need to get some residency requirements. I think we need to take a look at it and see what’s doable.”

The Senate initially met June 18, when Democratic leaders hoped to pass a bill to lift the Pell Grant and FAFSA requirements for relatives of veterans killed in the line of duty or disabled in combat, but not those with non-combat disabilities. They met for more than five hours that day but did not advance the legislation.

Youngkin praised the House’s action Friday and leaned on the Senate to fall in line with that plan.

“Our veterans, first responders, and their families have spoken, and we have heard them,” he said in a written statement. “Now it is time for the Senate to pass the bill on Monday, so I can sign it immediately. … If the Senate Democrat Leadership does not support a repeal of the language, they are holding our veterans, first responders, and their families, hostage.”

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Virginia

Data centers transformed Northern Virginia’s economy, but residents are wary of more expansion

Published

13 hours ago

June 28, 2024

Press Room

Data centers transformed Northern Virginia’s economy, but residents are wary of more expansion

Julie and Chris Borneman signed petitions, wrote to their local officials, put a sign in front of their house, and joined a campaign against putting the power line through their property.

The recent expansion of data centers and associated power infrastructure is unprecedented, according to Julie Bolthouse, director of land use at the Piedmont Environmental Council, a local environmental nonprofit. She has worked at the nonprofit for 15 years.

“Prior to 2021 I had only worked on two or three transmission line proposals … Within the last three years, I’ve been a participant in stakeholder meetings for at least a dozen transmission line proposals,” Bolthouse said. “We’ve never seen this many transmission lines at once.”

The Piedmont Environmental Council has been keeping track of all these data centers and associated power infrastructure.

Bolthouse said the power company and state regulator have been approving many of these projects, but there is not enough public information about how much energy the data centers use, and their impact on air and water quality.

“We need transparency so that we can proactively plan ahead,” said Bolthouse. “Right now, what we’re doing is basically like our utility is handing out blank checks that we, the rate payers, are on the hook for paying for.”

To that, Aaron Ruby, spokesperson for Dominion Energy, the largest utility in Virginia, said, “as a public utility we are the most heavily regulated industry in Virginia.”

He said the state regulator reviews the energy costs to make sure everyone is paying their fair share, and the share of energy costs that households pay for has gone down, whereas the share for data centers has gone up.

He also added that Dominion Energy expects the power demand from data centers to nearly quadruple over the next 15 years.

The demand for power has never gone up by so much, so quickly.

Some of the electricity will come from natural gas plants, but Ruby said most of that will be from renewable energy like wind and solar power.

In a statement, Amazon pointed out that their company has been the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy for four years, and that 90 percent of the energy the company uses comes from renewable sources.

Local officials say data centers saved their economy during the Great Recession of 2007. Buddy Rizer helped bring data centers to Loudoun County in northern Virginia, as the executive director for economic development for the county for the past 17 years.

He said they brought in data centers because during 2007, the local economy took a big hit when the housing bubble burst. The county lost a third of its tax revenue.

“Data centers have such an inordinate return on investment for a community that there’s nothing else that comes close,” Rizer said. “As an example: for every dollar a data center uses in services in our community. We get $26 back. There’s nothing that comes within $24 of that.”

He said the revenue from data centers helped transform their local economy, so they could invest in their schools and roads. He added that the tax revenue from data centers is almost a third of the county’s budget, and completely funds their operating budget.

But Rizer has also heard the concerns about how quickly the industry is growing in their area.

“When you’re in any job 17 years, in your community, you become your job … especially a fairly public facing job like mine,” Rizer said. “I have a lot of conversations at the grocery store or when I’m filling my car with gas.”

He expects the demand for data centers to continue to grow.

Rizer said cloud computing led to a big wave of data centers, then it was the demand for online services during COVID-19. Now, the big driver of growth is artificial intelligence.

He said data centers actually do not have a lot more room to grow in Loudoun County anymore. The more recent proposals for new data centers have been in the surrounding counties, Maryland, states like Kansas and Mississippi, or other countries, like China, India, Japan, and Malaysia.

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Virginia

Online predator may have abused additional victims in Virginia

Published

20 hours ago

June 28, 2024

Press Room

Online predator may have abused additional victims in Virginia

Police in northern Virginia are warning parents about predators on popular social media platforms. This comes after a Fairfax County man was arrested for attempting to meet up with a child. FOX 5’s Nana-Sentuo Bonsu is in McLean with the latest.

Posted June 27, 2024 11:23pm EDT

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