Yoga for All

When Arlet Koseian-Beckham, owner and founder of extendYoga in North Bethesda, looked around the wellness world in 2021, she saw a community that didn’t reflect the diverse population of folks who lived near her studio. With inclusivity in mind, the first-generation Armenian, 42, and employees Ayanna Wells (pictured above), 37, a Black woman, and Zahra Abbassi, 40, a Muslim woman, came up with the Repped Inclusive Yoga Series. A community is chosen to be the focus of a month of Sunday afternoon yoga sessions led by a teacher from that community, plus there’s representation in the art on the walls and the products in the boutique. September will be Latinx month, with three classes in Spanish and a trip to the Latin American Film Festival at AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring. October will be a warrior series with trauma-informed yoga, sessions for breast cancer survivors and a session for those living with addiction.

12106 Wilkins Ave., North Bethesda, 301-881-3330, extendyoga.com 

Great Wall

There’s so much to take in when looking at “Wheaton Lives,” a mural completed in June on the side of Elbe’s Beer & Wine store, that your eye may not know where to go first. Start at the right side, above the store entrance, and “read” to the left, moving through time from past to present. A Native American village, 18th-century European settlers, the founders of Elbe’s back when it was a neighborhood grocery store, a youth kicking a soccer ball, a present-day woman cooking pupusas—these images and more make up a tapestry of Wheaton life. The mural was painted by Baltimore artist Bridget Cimino, 42, who says she “wanted to create a piece with lots of color and movement.” Her favorite touches: the plowmen and their horses, and the Piscataway village.  

 2522 University Blvd. W., Wheaton, wheatonartsparade.org/elbesmural

Fall for this 

To the mix of pumpkin spice lattes, harvest ales, apple fritters and other quintessential fall faves, we add the apple cider doughnut sundae at Jimmie Cone in Damascus. It starts with an apple cider doughnut from Gaver Farm in Mt. Airy, Maryland. Piled on is soft-serve vanilla ice cream drizzled with hot caramel sauce. To top it off: whipped cream and a cherry, of course. Look for this year’s sundaes to hit the iconic ice cream shop around mid-September, and you can expect prices close to last year’s $8 or a little more. 

 26420 Ridge Road, Damascus, 301-253-2003, jimmiecone.com

Naturally Fun 

The best way to get out of a playground rut? Discover a spot with new things to explore. Beeline to the Nature Play Space at Woodend Nature Sanctuary in Chevy Chase for a water feature that’s activated by kid power, a group of boulders to scale, a slide encased in a wooden wood thrush (seen in the photo here) and a “bird nest” climbing structure made of giant logs. Opened in the fall of 2023, the play space is meant for kids up to age 10 and is designed to be accessible to all. It includes a small parking lot nearby, a pair of bathrooms with composting toilets (no water or chemicals), a water bottle filling station and a changing table stall. Keep the exploration going by trekking around some of the trails on the 40-acre property and checking out the gardens, meadows and pond.  

 8940 Jones Mill Road, Chevy Chase, 301-652-9188, natureforward.org

Stretch Out Summer

We’re not ready to say goodbye to days spent cooling off at the pool. With county-run outdoor pools (and many private ones) closing right after Labor Day, it’s a good time to splash the day away at the new indoor Silver Spring Recreation and Aquatic Center. Open year-round, it has the only county-run aquatic climbing wall. Climbers move untethered up the 10-foot rock wall, which means that falling into the water (from the top or on the way up) is part of the fun. The aquatic center, which opened in February in downtown Silver Spring, also has lap lanes, two hot tubs, diving boards, water-dumping buckets and a couple of slides. See the website for prices and the schedule; the climbing wall is open during rec swim. Look for metered parking on the street or in the garage at 8700 Cameron St. 

 1319 Apple Ave., Silver Spring, 240-777-6900, montgomerycountymd.gov

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To jump to a category:
Art
Literature
Theater
Comedy & Variety
Music
Dance
Film

Art

Sept. 5-29: The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards

This annual exhibition features pieces by finalists in The Trawick Prize competition, which awards $10,000 to the best in show. It’s open to artists from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., working in any media. Among this year’s finalists is James Terrell’s “The Last Supper.” Past exhibitions have included large-scale sculptures, video installations and performance art, as well as paintings, drawings and photography. An opening reception is planned for Sept. 13 at Gallery B. bethesda.org

Sept. 12-Dec. 6: Faces of the Forest: Frontline of Resilience

Rock Creek Conservancy presents this exhibition of large-scale botanical fiber sculptures (pictured) and small drawings by artist Sophia McCrocklin at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda. An opening reception is planned for Sept. 12. A symposium, “If the Forest Could Talk, What Would it Say?,” with the artist and other panelists is scheduled for Oct. 3, and a discussion about the future of Rock Creek Park moderated by U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Dist. 8) is slated for Nov. 25. rockcreekconservancy.org

Oct. 2-23  Synchronicity

In one image by Olney photographer Kim Keller, a model in a picture on the side of a bus appears to nearly kick a bystander in the head. In another, a man wearing a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet casually crosses a city intersection along with tourists in shorts and T-shirts. Keller uses her camera to capture scenes like these that happen at random but seem to communicate something meaningful. Her street photography will be on display in an exhibition at Artists & Makers Studios in Rockville. An opening reception is planned for Oct. 4. artistsandmakersstudios.com

Literature

Sept. 28  F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival

Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward is the Fitzgerald Award honoree at this annual festival that celebrates F. Scott Fitzgerald and other prominent American authors with readings, author discussions, writing workshops, awards and book signings. Ward, the author of Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing among her four novels, and an English professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, will give a reading at the event. Other highlights include readings and remarks by keynote speaker David Ignatius, author and Washington Post foreign affairs columnist, and special guest Kiese Laymon, author of the novel Long Division and a professor of English and creative writing at Rice University in Houston. Events take place at the Rockville campus of Montgomery College. fitzgeraldfestival.com

Theater

Sept. 11-Oct. 6: Sojourners

Revolving around a love triangle among three young Nigerian immigrants in Texas in the 1970s, this show is the first in playwright Mfoniso Udofia’s projected nine-part multigenerational Ufot Cycle, which will examine the Nigerian American experience through the eyes of the Ufot family. In Sojourners, at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre, the characters must decide whether to return to Nigeria after finishing their education or stay in America and make a life for themselves. roundhousetheatre.org

Sept. 18-Oct. 27: Winnie the Pooh

A.A. Milne’s classic character is joined by Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, Rabbit and Owl in this gentle musical for children age 3 and older at Imagination Stage in Bethesda. Set during one busy day in the Hundred Acre Wood, there’s a Heffalump to catch, Eeyore’s tail to find and a misunderstanding between Rabbit and Kanga to sort out. imaginationstage.org

Sept. 27-Oct. 20 Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground

With the presidential election fast approaching, this one-man show at Olney Theatre Center looks back to a time in history, but also speaks to the present. Starring Tony Award winner John Rubinstein (pictured), it’s set in 1962 as President Dwight Eisenhower finds out he’s been ranked toward the bottom of a list of the best presidents in history. From his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he defends his life and career, pointing out the leadership a president must project and the responsibilities they must shoulder. olneytheatre.org

Oct. 4-Nov. 3: She Persisted

Based on the book by Chelsea Clinton, this time-traveling musical at Adventure Theatre MTC in Glen Echo follows fourth grader Naomi’s field trip to a women’s history museum where she encounters inspirational women—including Harriet Tubman, Virginia Apgar, Ruby Bridges, Sally Ride, Florence Griffith Joyner and Sonia Sotomayor—who overcame barriers and made waves throughout U.S. history. The show is recommended for all ages. adventuretheatre-mtc.org

Oct. 19-Nov. 3: Astro Boy and the God of Comics

The iconic manga character Astro Boy comes to the stage at the Silver Spring Black Box Theatre in this retro-futuristic production presented by Flying V Theatre. Puppets, illustrations and live actors will blend to tell a multimedia story of artist and cartoonist Osamu Tezuka and his creation through 10 “episodes.” The show is recommended for age 13 and older due to possible adult language and references to topics such as death and war. flyingvtheatre.com

Oct. 24-Jan. 5: Disney’s Frozen

Sure, you’ve seen the animated movie a million times. But if you think have an idea of what to expect from Olney Theatre Center’s production of the Disney hit, “let it go.” Starring two women of color including Anna (Alex De Bard), this production directed by Alan Muraoka of Sesame Street aims to please adults as well as kids. The theater’s website says the musical would probably receive a PG rating if it were a film. olneytheatre.org

Nov. 20-Dec. 22: A Hanukkah Carol, or Gelt Trip! The Musical

This world premiere at Round House Theatre in Bethesda puts a Hanukkah spin on A Christmas Carol. Millennial influencer Chava Kanipshin is visited by a series of ghosts who lead her through Hanukkahs past, present and future to reconnect with her spirit of generosity, Jewish identity and supporters in real life, not just online. roundhousetheatre.org

Dec. 6-Jan. 5: ’Twas the Night Before Christmas

Traditionally, not a creature stirs on Christmas Eve, not even a mouse. But that’s not the case in this tribute to the holiday season at Glen Echo’s Adventure Theatre MTC. After Santa missed his house last year, a mouse goes on a wild adventure with an elf and a spunky little girl. The show is appropriate for all ages. adventuretheatre-mtc.org

Dec. 11-March 7  Petite Rouge: A Cajun Red Riding Hood

It’s Little Red Riding Hood but with a Cajun twist in this update of the classic tale at Bethesda’s Imagination Stage. Petite Rouge, a red-robed duck, and her cat set off to bring Grand-mere some gumbo, but they encounter a Big Bad Gator who chases them through New Orleans. Expect Zydeco music and a chorus of swamp dwellers in this show that’s best for age 5 and older. imaginationstage.org

Comedy and Variety

Sept. 10: Mikey Day and Ego Nwodim

The two Saturday Night Live cast members are joined by Los Angeles-based writer and comedian Amy Silverberg at the Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center in Rockville for a night of stand-up comedy. Day started at SNL as a writer and went on to become a cast member, playing President Joe Biden in a 2023 Halloween sketch, and cracking up fellow cast member Heidi Gardner as the Butt-Head to guest host Ryan Gosling’s Beavis in a sketch earlier this year. He’s also the host of the show Is It Cake? on Netflix. In addition to SNL, Nwodim, a Baltimore native, has appeared in the movies Players, Spin Me Round and Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.
montgomerycollege.edu/events

Nov. 7:  Giancarlo Esposito

Known for his roles as terrifying drug kingpin Gus Fring in Breaking Bad and the dangerous Imperial leader Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian, Esposito comes to Rockville’s Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center for a moderated discussion on his nearly five-decade career as a film, television and stage actor, director and producer. He’ll discuss the hurdles people of color face in the industry and how he embraced his racial identity in his acting. montgomerycollege.edu/events

Dec. 4: A Swingin’ Little Christmas! Starring Jane Lynch

If you like your holidays flavored with some mid-century Christmas kitsch, head to The Music Center at Strathmore for a show that’s part cabaret and part comedy. Jane Lynch (center), the Emmy and Golden Globe winner known for her roles in Glee and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, is joined by Kate Flannery (right), from The Office, and Tim Davis (left), vocal arranger from Glee, in a send-up of holiday shows from the 1950s and ’60s. They will be backed by the Tony Guerrero Quintet. strathmore.org

Music

Sept. 13: BSO Fusion—And I Love Her: The Beatles Reimagined

In this concert at The Music Center at Strathmore, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Steve Hackman, performs a musical tribute to the Fab Four, the women who influenced them and the unforgettable characters they created in their songs. bsomusic.org

Sept. 22: Rosanne Cash

The American roots music icon and daughter of Johnny Cash comes to The Music Center at Strathmore for a concert marking the re-release of her album The Wheel and 30 years of stories and songs. A four-time Grammy Award winner, she’s also an author and the first female composer to win the MacDowell Medal, given to “artists who have made exceptional contributions to American culture.” strathmore.org

Oct. 5: Meshell Ndegeocello

The culmination of Strathmore’s series marking the 100th birthday of writer James Baldwin, this concert at The Music Center at Strathmore features the Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and instrumentalist, joined by her band and guest performers. Inspired by Baldwin’s use of writing to empower others, Ndegeocello utilizes her music, which draws on rock, hip-hop, R&B and spoken word, to engage with and pay tribute to his work. strathmore.org

Oct. 9  Neko Case

The singer-songwriter’s career has stretched over decades and musical genres, drawing from country, folk, indie rock, pop and punk. Known for her clear contralto voice and cryptic lyrics, she has released seven solo studio albums as well as collaborated with indie rock band The New Pornographers and with k.d. lang and Laura Veirs in their group Case/Lang/Veirs. With a career-spanning retrospective album released in 2022 and a memoir due out in January, she visits The Music Center at Strathmore on her tour this fall. strathmore.org

Oct. 12: Tori Kelly

The one-time American Idol contestant and Grammy Award winner stops by The Fillmore Silver Spring on her Purple Skies tour supporting her album TORI., which features pop music inspired by tunes from the late 1990s and early 2000s. In addition to releasing five albums, Kelly’s also known for voicing the elephant Meena in the animated movies Sing and Sing 2. fillmoresilverspring.com

Oct. 18: Judah & the Lion

Formed in 2011, the folk-rock group is made up of Judah Akers and Brian Macdonald, who met while attending college at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Their concert at The Fillmore Silver Spring is in support of their latest album, The Process, which is based on different stages of grief and was written after Akers faced a tough stretch in his life, including a divorce and the deaths of family members. fillmoresilverspring.com

Nov. 1: Judy Collins and Madeleine Peyroux

Collins (left), a folk legend, will perform her 1967 album Wildflowers in its entirety at The Music Center at Strathmore. Included on the album is her rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” for which Collins won a Grammy. Sharing the bill, Peyroux (right), a jazz vocalist, will perform hits from her album Careless Love and other recent releases. strathmore.org

Nov. 9: Tyler Hubbard

One half of the country duo Florida Georgia Line, Hubbard is touring solo after the breakup of the pair in 2022. He swings by The Fillmore Silver Spring to promote his latest album, Strong, which is full of upbeat feel-good music. fillmoresilverspring.com

Nov. 15-16: Dru Hill

Before Sisqo was rapping about thongs, he was singing with Dru Hill, the R&B group from Baltimore that became famous in the 1990s for songs such as “In My Bed,” “Never Make a Promise” and “How Deep Is Your Love.” The group will perform two shows featuring original and newer members at the Bethesda Theater. bethesdatheater.com

Dance

Nov. 30: Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet

An international cast of dancers in lavish costumes stars onstage along with puppets and acrobats in this traditional take on the classic Tchaikovsky ballet at The Music Center at Strathmore. strathmore.org

Dec. 13: BSO: Cirque Nutcracker

Troupe Vertigo blends elements of circus acrobatics, dance and theater in this performance of The Nutcracker backed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at The Music Center at Strathmore. bsomusic.org

Film

Sept. 19-Oct. 10: AFI Latin American Film Festival

Set to coincide with National Hispanic Heritage Month, which is observed Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 each year, the festival features movies from Latin American countries as well as Spain and Portugal at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring. Last year’s showcase offered more than 40 films. Some screenings include Q&As with filmmakers and embassy-sponsored receptions. afisilver.afi.com/silver/laff

Oct. 11-24: Noir City: DC

This festival at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring features a curated collection of films noir. This year, the festival presents a series of double features, pairing American and British noirs with thematically linked foreign-language movies. Eddie Muller, a writer, film historian and Turner Classic Movies host, will introduce select screenings. Muller is founder of the Film Noir Foundation, which restores and preserves movies from the genre. Proceeds from the festival go to the foundation. afisilver.afi.com

Dec. 4-22: AFI European Union Film Showcase

You don’t need a passport to see the best films from Europe this season; just head to Silver Spring. The annual AFI European Union Film Showcase, now in its 37th year, features the best movies from across the continent at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. Last year’s films included Academy Award contenders and U.S. premieres. Select screenings include Q&A sessions with filmmakers. afisilver.afi.com 

The post Montgomery County’s music, art and theater offerings will keep you entertained this fall appeared first on MoCo360.

At Lime & Cilantro, which opened in Silver Spring in May, a server pours a deeply verdant aguachile (chili water) around ultra-thin slices of branzino decorated with dainty dollops of avocado crema and tiny pickled spheres of cucumber and radish. The sauce, zesty from jalapenos, transforms the raw fish into a delightful ceviche imbued with—no surprise here—lime and cilantro. The dish is a study in modern art with hallmarks of refinement found at the fanciest of fine-dining restaurants. But Lime & Cilantro is a no-frills spot offering tacos and tortas (sandwiches) as part of its contemporary Latin fare. 

Chef and co-owner Danny Chavez, 36, was born in El Salvador. When he was 12, he moved to Windsor, Connecticut, to live with his father, a chef in an Italian restaurant. Under his dad’s tutelage, he trained over the years on every station, starting as a dishwasher and winding up as the sous-chef. When his maternal grandmother died in 2012, Chavez went to D.C. to help his mother, Maria Torres, and two siblings. A friend tipped him off to a job at the Liaison Hotel (now YOTEL Washington D.C.) as a banquet cook at its restaurant, Art and Soul, where he worked his way up to line cook, sous-chef and, after returning from brief stints at D.C. restaurants Plume and Gravitas, executive chef. He left in February 2024 and opened Lime & Cilantro with Fathi Sarsouri, who had been Art and Soul’s food and beverage director. The two had been looking to strike out on their own, Chavez says, and when a pal told them about the availability of their current space, he contacted the landlords and signed the deal that day. “We thought it was the perfect location for our modern Latin concept because there was nothing like it in that area,” he says.  

The business partners rolled up their sleeves, scrubbed the former fried chicken joint from stem to stern and prettified the 1,700-square-foot, 40-seat space on a shoestring budget, with design help from Chavez’s fiancée, Sarah Reinecke. Walls, painted in off-white and sage green, are decorated with collections of basketry and wooden spoons. Narrow pinewood planks of varying lengths line the walls horizontally with small wooden shelves protruding between them to hold flowerpots of cascading faux flora. Woven baskets on each table hold cutlery, paper napkins and salt and pepper shakers.  

Chavez, wearing a black T-shirt and apron, can be spotted in the open kitchen in the back of the restaurant standing under two large copper heat lamps as he puts finishing touches on dishes. In addition to the branzino crudo, start with guacamole brightened with plenty of lime juice and topped with queso fresco, pickled red onions, chili oil and cilantro sprigs. Then move on to a round, flaky empanada filled with chicken that has been braised in a mole of dried peppers (guajillos, pastillas, poblanos and fiery, smoky chipotles), chocolate, sesame seeds, corn tortillas, cinnamon and cloves. Chavez pulls and shreds the chicken and mixes it with caramelized onions to add a hint of sweetness to the already flavor-packed filling. The pie is served with dollops of chipotle aioli and striations of dark green chimichurri, a South American salsa that, in Chavez’s version, includes ramps in addition to more traditional herbs, including cilantro, chives, parsley and garlic.  

Another starter, a hummus made with 75% corn and 25% chickpeas and served with roasted corn salsa, is a good idea that, with boosting of some of its ingredients—perhaps more lemon juice, cumin and chili oil—could turn into a great one. The homemade potato chips that accompany it are fab, though. The “not-your-classic” Caesar salad (it has corn and avocado in it) could also benefit from a boost of extra anchovies and garlic in its timid buttermilk chipotle dressing. 

Chavez offers four kinds of tacos, all made with corn tortillas pressed and griddled to order, including al pastor (adobo-marinated pork butt sliced and cooked on the flattop griddle and served with fermented pineapple salsa enhanced with Korean gochujang, a fermented red chili paste), carne asada (griddled flank steak that has been marinated in a puree of guajillo peppers, soy sauce, chili oil and a paste made with annatto seeds, garlic and spices) and a vegetarian option made with sauteed mushrooms (maitake, cremini and button), refried beans, charred broccolini and whipped goat cheese. The standout, though, is the fish taco, thick batons of perfectly cooked and moist fried sea bass lightly coated with crispy cornmeal and beer batter and crowned with pickled cabbage and chipotle aioli. (The slaw, touched with oregano, is the recipe Chavez’s mom uses to accompany her pupusas.) 

Among the entrees, a marvelous choice is the roasted chicken breast with a red, chili-based sauce called pozole. To make the sauce, Chavez simmers chicken stock, garlic, bay leaves, chipotles and charred poblano, guajillo and jalapeno peppers for 90 minutes and purees the mixture after removing the bay leaves. To assemble the dish, chicken breasts are brined overnight, then pan-seared to order with garlic, thyme and butter and enrobed with pozole that has been sauteed with browned and rendered chorizo sausage, corn and kale. A final spritz of lime juices adds just the right touch of acid. The chicken is tender and juicy, its sauce layered with complexity.  

For another entree, Chavez braises seared short ribs for 10 hours in the deep, rich mole used for the chicken empanadas. The tender beef then gets glazed with more mole and served with wild rice, kale, pickled cabbage, queso fresco and a swirl of chili oil. The result is luxuriant and rib-sticking.  

Pan-seared branzino basted with lemon, butter and thyme and accompanied by a kale, quinoa and avocado salad dressed with chipotle tamari vinaigrette is also a winner. I have high hopes for tamales—one corn, the other chicken—but find them a tad bland and stodgy and their fillings skimpy.   

Tortas, lightly pressed sandwiches filled with mortadella, herb-crusted pork, pastrami-spiced chicken, or mushrooms and broccolini, are not a strong suit at Lime & Cilantro. Do try the fluffy cheesecake with rhubarb jam and caramel sauce or the rich tres leches bread pudding with macerated berries for dessert.  

Chavez won my heart moments after I sat down for my first meal at Lime & Cilantro and eyed a dog’s menu alongside the fare for humans. “There’s a veterinarian next door to the restaurant and I’m a dog lover with two dogs,” he says. Offerings include grilled, unseasoned flank steak tips, “awoof con pollo” (braised chicken with rice and veggies) and “bon a-pet treat” (popsicles made with peanut butter, banana and yogurt). Chavez says you have 30 minutes to get the popsicles home before they melt. The restaurant has no outdoor seating except a two-top right in front of the building. 

A sign on one of Lime & Cilantro’s walls says, “Vive tus Sueños,” which means “Live your dreams” in Spanish. It’s heartening to see Chavez living his. 

The post Silver Spring’s Lime & Cilantro puts a modern twist on traditional Latin cuisine appeared first on MoCo360.

FESTIVALS & COMMUNITY EVENTS  

Sept. 7-8 
Bethesda Row Arts Festival  

Original artwork in categories including painting, sculpture, photography, digital art, woodworking, textiles and jewelry is on display and for sale at this outdoor show in downtown Bethesda. A jury of local artists chooses a winner in each discipline and a Best in Show grand prize winner bethesdarowarts.org

Sept. 8 
Salvadoran Independence Festival  

Sept. 15 marks the 203rd anniversary of El Salvador’s independence, and thousands of people are expected to celebrate the occasion at this festival at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds. Musical guests include Zacarias Ferreira, Orquesta Hermanos Flores, Marito Rivera and Grupo Bravo, Orquesta San Vincente, and La Maquina. festivalsalvadoreno.com

Sept. 13-15
Washington Ukrainian Festival 

Experience traditional Ukrainian music, dance, clothing and food at this event on the grounds of the St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Silver Spring, where you’ll also find handmade crafts by folk artisans and activities such as face painting for children. ukrainefestdc.com

Sept. 14
A Day of Belonging 

Veterans, active-duty military personnel, their families, caregivers and community members are invited to participate in art workshops, demonstrations, performances and readings at this event produced by Community Building Art Works and Strathmore. The gathering at The Mansion at Strathmore is open to anyone age 16 and older. strathmore.org

Sept. 21
Parks Ale Trail  

Part festival, part hike, this event includes a walk by Lake Needwood in Rock Creek Regional Park in Rockville as well as beer stations, live music and food trucks. Start at the main festival area, where you can see live bands and grab a bite or a beverage. Kids can play on inflatables. Then hit the 2.5-mile round-trip trail, where you’ll find another beer garden and acoustic musical performances mid-hike at Needwood Mansion. montgomeryparks.org/event/parks-ale-trail

Sept. 28
Polo Classic   

Wear your fanciest topper to Habitat for Humanity Metro Maryland’s fifth annual polo event to benefit the nonprofit. In addition to the matches at the Congressional Polo Club in Poolesville, there will be a “divot stomp” and contests for best hat, best dressed and best tailgate. classy.org/event/5th-annual-polo-classic/e575708 

Sept. 28
Rocktobierfest    

Beer and bands are among the highlights of this free German-themed festival in Rockville Town Center. Live performances—rock music and traditional German music and dance—take place on two stages. You also can enjoy drinks from local breweries, food and checking out the crafts for sale. rockvillemd.gov/1952/rocktobierfest

Sept. 29
Wheaton Arts Parade & Festival     

Watch as spectacular floats, dance groups, bands and artists march around the Wheaton triangle to start this festival dedicated to art and community. The event at Marian Fryer Town Plaza also features a visual arts market, live musical performances by local talent and activities for kids such as face painting and balloon art. wheatonartsparade.org

Oct. 5
Harvest Festival   

Candle dipping, tin smithing, quilting and yarn spinning are a few of the traditional hands-on activities you can try at this event at the Agricultural History Farm Park in Derwood. You also can paint a pumpkin, make a scarecrow, go on a hayride and enjoy live music and storytelling. Don’t forget to check out the farm equipment demonstrations and say hello to the resident farm animals. montgomeryparks.org/event/harvest-festival

Oct. 5
Taste of Bethesda    

You can sample cuisine from newcomers and old favorites during this annual event in the Woodmont Triangle neighborhood. More than 30 restaurants are expected to participate in the festival, which also features five stages of live entertainment. bethesda.org/bethesda/taste-bethesda

Oct. 13
Oktoberfest    

This fall festival in the Kentlands features Bavarian music and dancing, performances by local bands, and traditional American autumnal activities, such as pumpkin carving and painting, and cider pressing demonstrations. For kids, there’s also face painting, balloon twisting and inflatables, while grown-ups can try beverages from local breweries and cider and mead distilleries. gaithersburgmd.gov/recreation/special-events/oktoberfest

Oct. 19
Rockville Antique and Classic Car Show    

There’s sure to be something that will rev your engine at this free event, where you can see all types of automobiles dating from the 1920s to the ’80s and ’90s. The show, which takes place on the grounds of Glenview Mansion at Rockville Civic Center Park, has a car sales area, flea market, live music, and food and drinks for purchase. rockvillemd.gov/667/antique-classic-car-show

MUSIC 

Sept. 13-14 
Will Downing  

Early in his career, the R&B singer was a backing vocalist for artists such as Kool & The Gang, Billy Ocean and Jennifer Holliday. Later, his album All the Man You Need was nominated for a Grammy Award. He’ll stop by the Bethesda Theater for two shows. bethesdatheater.com/shows

Sept. 14
The Sweater Set 

Lifelong friends Maureen Andary and Sara Curtin make up this contemporary folk music duo known for charming harmonies. They’ll perform a free outdoor concert at Good Hope Neighborhood Recreation Center in Silver Spring. Pack a picnic and chairs or blankets, but no alcohol. strathmore.org

Sept. 20
Yo-Yo Ma 

The world-famous cellist joins conductor Jonathon Heyward and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) for this concert at The Music Center at Strathmore. The concert is the classical season opener for the BSO and its largest fundraiser of the season. Expect appearances by special guests, including student musicians. bsomusic.org

Sept. 21 
Musica Viva Kentlands  

Head to the Kentlands Clubhouse lawn for a free outdoor classical music concert by a professional orchestra. The performance is part of an ongoing initiative sponsored by the Kentlands Community Foundation, which aims to bring affordable, high-quality classical music concerts to the community, presented in a relaxed atmosphere for audiences of all ages. kentlands.org

Oct. 4 
Blockbuster Broadway  

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is led by conductor Stuart Chafetz and joined by guest vocalists in this tribute to the Great White Way at The Music Center at Strathmore. Expect songs from Broadway favorites including The Phantom of the Opera, Jersey Boys, Wicked, Annie, The Sound of Music, Cats and The Lion King, just to name a few. bsomusic.org

Oct. 11 
Elle King 

The “Ex’s & Oh’s” singer and four-time Grammy nominee is back on the road. King, whose dad is actor Rob Schneider, stops by The Fillmore Silver Spring on a tour promoting her single “Baby Daddy’s Weekend.” livenation.com/venue/kovzpza6tfla/the-fillmore-silver-spring-events

Oct. 18 
Afro-Cuban All Stars  

If you were around in the late 1990s, you probably remember the Buena Vista Social Club, the name of both an album by a group of aging Cuban musicians and a documentary about them. Bandleader Juan de Marcos González was an instrumental member of that project and has devoted his career to keeping Cuba’s musical heritage alive. With the Grammy-nominated Afro-Cuban All Stars, he’ll bring the sounds and rhythms of Cuban music to The Music Center at Strathmore. strathmore.org

FILM 

Oct. 25
The Nightmare Before Christmas  

Just in time for Halloween, see a screening of the Disney film by Tim Burton while the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra plays Danny Elfman’s memorable score at The Music Center at Strathmore. The movie follows the misadventures of Halloween Town’s Pumpkin King Jack Skellington as he attempts to take over Christmas. bsomusic.org

ON STAGE

Sept. 13-29 
Red Herring 

Set in 1952, this black comedy at the Arts Barn in Gaithersburg follows the attempts of three couples to overcome the obstacles of love and marriage, while also solving a murder mystery and uncovering a Soviet spy plot. The show is presented in partnership with The Montgomery Playhouse. gaithersburgmd.gov

Sept. 20-29 
Veronica’s Room   

This thriller written by Ira Levin, author of Rosemary’s Baby, is full of twists and turns. A young couple, Susan and Larry, are out on a date when they meet the Mackeys, a sketchy older couple who serve as caretakers at the Brabissant mansion. They convince Susan to pose as the long-dead Veronica Brabissant to console Veronica’s dying sister, but the line between reality and fantasy soon begins to fade in this production by Rockville Little Theatre at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre. rlt-online.org/veronicas-room

Oct. 1 
Better With Age Comedy Special  

Think aging is no laughing matter? This free comedy show presented by Montgomery Parks as part of Active Aging Week will prove you wrong. Comedians will riff on growing older, family, friends, relationships and all the trials and tribulations that go with them. The event at Martin Luther King Jr. Recreational Park in Silver Spring is geared toward audiences 55 and older. montgomeryparks.org

UP AND RUNNING

Setting a goal,  trying something new, spending time with friends—people join races for all kinds of reasons. Whether you’re a first-timer or an experienced marathoner, there’s a run nearby that’s just your speed.  

Sept. 7 
Damascus Freedom 5K 

This family-friendly 3.1-mile race at Damascus Recreational Park commemorates 9/11, honors veterans and first responders, and raises money for organizations that support members of the military and their families. The out-and-back route is a partly paved trail, with a portion on a wooded grassy path. There’s also food, entertainment and a quarter-mile fun run for kids. damascusfreedom5k.com 

Sept. 8 
Parks Half Marathon 

Imagine running through parkland as the sun rises above the trees—along with about 2,000 others. Known for its friendly vibes, it’s a favorite among casual and competitive runners, and is open to participants age 13 and older. The course starts near the Shady Grove Metro station, winds through Rock Creek Park and ends with a Finish Festival on Beach Drive in Kensington. parkshalfmarathon.com 

Sept. 15 
Revenge of the Penguins 

This race gets its name in part from marathoner and author John Bingham, who promoted jogging and walking marathons and was nicknamed “The Penguin” for his slow pace. Choose the 10-mile or 20-mile course; both follow the flat, shady and tree-lined C&O Canal towpath. The race is organized by Marathon Charity Cooperation, a nonprofit that raises money for charities that work to improve the lives and comfort of disadvantaged children and families. mc-coop.org/rotp 

Oct. 12 
Black Hill 10K 

The scenic route snakes through Black Hill Regional Park in Boyds. The race, introduced in 2009, is organized by the Montgomery County Road Runners Club, which offers training programs, group runs and races for participants of all levels. mcrrc.org/calendar-event/black-hill-10k-2024

The post What to do in Montgomery County in September and October appeared first on MoCo360.

Cynthia Bryant

At 14, Cynthia Bryant was in the waiting room of a Kansas City, Missouri, hospital. Her mother, a philanthropist, and father, an internal medicine doctor, had been taking her to eye specialists across the Midwest, concerned about her peripheral vision. On that day, her mother was consulting yet another physician.

Suddently, a hospital social worker sidled up to the teenager with brochures about welfare and other government support programs. Just as the woman began telling her that she would need these services someday, Cynthia’s mother appeared and shooed the social worker away. There would be no talk of government assistance, her mother told her, and no matter what lay ahead, she would grow up to accomplish whatever goals she set for herself.  

Not long after, Cynthia learned her diagnosis: a rare genetic condition called retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The disease slowly breaks down cells in the retina until all you can see are shadows of light. Having RP, she was told, meant that she’d eventually go blind. 

Now 61, Bryant is a professional mediator and chairs the board of trustees of The Seeing Eye, a nonprofit based in Morristown, New Jersey, that is the oldest existing guide dog school in the world, according to its website.

Bryant enrolled in the program in her 40s, two decades after she’d been declared legally blind and several years after she’d begun using a cane. She’s the first graduate of Seeing Eye to serve as board chair in the organization’s 95-year history. She’s also the first person of color to serve in the role, as well as the first woman to assume the chairmanship since Dorothy Harrison Eustis, who co-founded the organization in 1929.

Bryant is also a sought-after public speaker who uses the tools she honed over her 23 years as an attorney with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the skills she’s perfected as a negotiator—both during her time at the FCC and since her retirement in 2022. Now her goal is to “build a bridge,” she says, between the sighted and the sightless, the Black community and white, and those who share disparate worldviews.

Her empathy speeches, as she calls them, conclude with “sensory mindfulness walks,” which aren’t walks at all, but almost poetic renditions of her typical morning stroll. She explains that 80% to 85% of what sighted people take in around them is through their eyes, and they are missing out on the joys that their other senses offer.

Bryant has given variations of her speech via Zoom to audiences around the world, as well as in person in South Korea, throughout the U.S. and in venues closer to her Chevy Chase home. Her guide dog, Summer, a 9-year-old yellow Labrador retriever mix, is always with her. It’s Summer who gives her the freedom to walk with confidence, Bryant says. It’s Summer who sits at her feet as she delivers her speeches.

“It’s a cold wet morning; I can feel the dampness on my skin,” her “walks” often begin. She goes on to detail her journey from her townhouse in Chevy Chase to the Friendship Heights Metro station, including the scent of her favorite tree in bloom, the sounds of the “symphony of birds,” and noticing how the coos of doves and the drumming of woodpeckers give way to the whoosh of rushing cars and the crunch of shoes on roadway gravel.

A native of Kansas City, Bryant relocated to Washington, D.C., at 37, when she could no longer see at night, because the city had public transportation and the Kennedy Center, and she knew she needed both, she says. She’d studied both music and French as an undergraduate and had grown up playing three instruments and watching the Kennedy Center Honors on television. By the time her vision had deteriorated enough to enroll in The Seeing Eye, she had already worked as a preschool teacher outside Boston, attended the University of Kansas School of Law, and served as an attorney  with the Missouri Public Service Commission.

“She has a beautiful voice, and she has perfect pitch,” says Bryant’s friend Carrie Clark, who adds that at the end of Bryant’s speeches she’ll often “pick a song that has to do with [what] she’s spoken about, or something that she thinks will inspire people, and she’ll just sing the song.”

Bryant realized her gift of bringing people together during her early years at the FCC. She was representing Native American tribes in complaints against telecommunication carriers. It was so rewarding to get the two sides talking that she soon signed up for classes through the Harvard Negotiation Institute, entered a leadership program through Blacks in Government, and flew to Georgia to interview former President Jimmy Carter about his negotiating strategies during the Camp David Accords.

Now she encourages people not to focus so much on what they see with their eyes; it can drive people apart. Instead, she says it’s important to consider where others are coming from and, figuratively, to walk in their shoes. “The only way to master the story,” she says, “is to get back to interaction through our other senses.” 

Simona Cabana

Simona Cabana will never forget how she spent her first month in the U.S.—hiding behind the counter of the first and only Java Nation coffee shop and watching as the small staff interacted with the few patrons who walked through the door.

It was 2016, and Cabana was 20 years old and newly married. She’d just arrived from her home country of Belarus and spoke broken English. Her husband, Henry, a general contractor, had built out the Kensington shop four years earlier and hired a manager to run the place, but it hadn’t turned a profit. Henry was about to sell the business to a man who wanted to turn it into a Mexican restaurant—that was, unless his new wife wanted to take a crack at running it.

She did, she told him. But first she had to learn the language, study what the business was doing wrong, and figure out how to do it better. 

Fast forward to today. Cabana, now 28, is president and CEO of a local coffee and restaurant empire. She’s grown Java Nation to include four locations—in North Bethesda, Kensington, Silver Spring and Gaithersburg—plus a commissary in North Bethesda and a roastery in Frederick. Her staff now numbers more than 130, she says, and includes both an executive chef and a pastry chef who create an extensive menu of cocktails, salads, entrees, desserts and breakfast pastries that are trucked daily to each restaurant. This year, she says, Java Nation sales are expected to exceed $10 million.

Many of Cabana’s original employees have moved into leadership roles. A few had ties to small coffee farms in their home countries, and Java Nation, with Cabana at the helm, has provided equipment so these farms can grow the high-end beans used in Java Nation’s specialty brews. The company has even supported the villages where they are located, Cabana says, donating funds to one town after it was hit by landslides, and computers and uniforms to local orphanages.

“She made all the good changes,” says Java Nation District Manager Karla Hernandez, who was one of only five employees at the Kensington store when Cabana arrived. “To be honest, we were having issues,” Hernandez says, but then Cabana took over and followed through on nearly every suggestion offered by customers, including the addition of new menu items Cabana created, changing the coffee supplier, and eventually roasting her own beans in the back of the store, Hernandez says.

Cabana left her family home at 17 to move to Belarus’ capital city of Minsk, where she spent her days at the public library studying business strategies of successful entrepreneurs. While also freelancing as a graphic designer, a client introduced her to her future husband, who was in the U.S. and needed help with social media and menu design for his startup coffee venture. There was chemistry from the start, Cabana says, and soon Henry flew to Belarus to meet her and her family. He ended up proposing on the trip, and the two have been together since.

Cabana says she had to make the store a success because “it [was] already like part of our little family.”

Right away “I became the barista, dishwasher, executive chef, food and beverage director. … I’d take a shift, I would put myself in a schedule, work in the back and the front, opening, closing … and when everyone was gone, I’d stay and roast until 9, 10 p.m.,” she says. “I took the sales like from $200 a day to $600 … and from $1,200 to $2,400. And it basically started skyrocketing.”

Today, videos on large-screen monitors run at every Java Nation restaurant, showing the farms where it gets its specialty beans, and occasionally Cabana strolling through the fields with a farmhand or foreman. She likes the way the films help bring customer awareness to the coffee-growing process.

Still, the Kensington resident isn’t resting on Java Nation’s laurels. She’d like to start offering classes to customers—instructing them on different blends and roasting techniques—as well as entering Java Nation’s proprietary coffee in national and international competitions. And she’d like to do more to help small coffee farmers around the world. Later this fall she will visit several small farms in El Salvador. 

“When you are a young CEO, I think you have … to stay humble about what [you] know [or] don’t know,” she says. “I never stop learning, never stop educating myself, never stop trying to explore new things.”

Anne Derse

It’s a Sunday morning in May, and the Rev. Anne Derse, 70, is standing before about 150 parishioners at St. John’s Norwood Episcopal Church in Chevy Chase. Tall and elegant, wearing a long white robe and an embroidered stole, she holds a leather-bound red and gold Gospel book high over her head, then cradles it in her arms to locate the page she wants, and begins reading from the Gospel of Mark in a voice that’s strong and clear—honed from years of public speaking in English, as well as French, Italian, Azerbaijani and Lithuanian.

For more than 30 years, Derse was a U.S. diplomat and Foreign Service officer. She served as ambassador to Azerbaijan under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and ambassador to Lithuania under President Obama. During her tenure in that Baltic nation, she was instrumental in encouraging the Lithuanian government to criminalize domestic violence against women, promoting LGBTQ+ and other human rights issues, and lobbying the political leadership to address the tragic legacy of the Holocaust in Lithuania.

Largely due to her efforts, Lithuania passed a historic restitution bill, awarding millions of dollars for Jewish property that had been seized by the Nazi government in Lithuania. It was only the third European country, after Germany and Austria, to pass such a bill. A “door is opening, and an awareness is gradually replacing ignorance,” she told a Lithuanian news outlet at the time.

Derse was also among a small group of diplomats who established the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and she served as the final U.S. commissioner on the Tripartite Gold Commission in Belgium, working with colleagues from the United Kingdom and France to adjudicate claims of gold stolen by Adolf Hitler’s Germany from central banks across Europe. Even her roles closer to home were impactful. From 2005-2006, she served as director for biodefense policy at the Homeland Security Council at the White House under George W. Bush, helping to write the President’s Plan for Fighting Pandemic Influenza. “It was a darn good plan,” she says. “And of course, when [President Donald] Trump came in, he threw it out.”

Derse retired from the State Department in 2012 and in 2016 she returned to school to become a deacon in the Episcopal Church. She was ordained in 2018 at the age of 64.

The Bethesda resident has since become a passionate proponent of interfaith engagement and cooperation among religious groups that call Montgomery County home. As St. John’s Norwood’s minister for community engagement, she has led multifaith vigils—for gun-violence prevention, victims of COVID-19, and most recently for peace and humanity, where she welcomed faith leaders from across the spectrum in offering prayers and words of solace that were intentionally nonpolitical. She’s a regular at rallies and other events in support of any group whose basic human rights are being threatened.

Derse has also been the impetus for projects helping asylum-seeking families from Afghanistan, Africa and the Middle East settle in the county and for establishing Nourishing Bethesda, a food distribution nonprofit that feeds nearly 5,000 people each month.

“She’s mesmerizing,” says longtime friend and colleague Nancy Adams, a retired U.S. government trade negotiator who has known Derse since the 1990s, when Derse and her husband, Hank, were stationed in Asia with their four young children. “She’s got such a skill from her years in diplomacy … she’s a motivator [who] helps people recognize what they can achieve together,” Adams says. “When she speaks … it’s just with such a sense of authority, [yet] it’s not dictative, it’s really inspirational.”

Derse says it wasn’t such a stretch to go from career diplomat to church deacon and community leader. Even during her time in the Foreign Service, she says, “the things that touched my heart were the things that helped change people’s lives. … It was the human stuff that spoke to me.”

Still, her second career came to her as an epiphany. A few years after she returned from her final overseas assignment, she was idling in her car at a red light at the intersection of Bethesda’s Bradley Boulevard and Wisconsin Avenue and thinking, What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Then she looked up and saw the tower of St. John’s.

She pulled into the parking lot and went inside to see if the priest happened to be there. He was. “You could say it was impulsive, you could say it was a spur of the moment,” Derse says. “Or you could say I was guided to do that.”

Marissa Mitchell

Marissa Mitchell knew at the age of 9 that she wanted to be a journalist. “Unlike other kids that age, I didn’t run home and watch cartoons. I watched my local news and The Oprah Winfrey Show,” she says. “I wanted to be just like those women on television who delivered information that mattered.”

Today the four-time Emmy Award-winning journalist is FOX 5 DC’s main morning anchor and co-host of the news and lifestyle show Good Day DC. She’s also one of the most altruistic on-air personalities in the Washington, D.C., area, donating hundreds of her off-duty hours to charitable causes, from women’s empowerment to raising awareness for missing Black youths “who don’t get the on-air coverage that they deserve,” she says. 

Mitchell, 39, arrived in the D.C. area in September 2020 from the Fox affiliate in Atlanta and was recruited almost immediately to emcee online charitable functions and lend her presence at 5K and 10K runs. “I do have a bubbly personality … and I think it really stood out at a time [when] people needed to feel special and [be] seen and heard,” she says, referring to the COVID-19 crisis.

As lockdowns ended, requests for her time only grew. Then and now, the Silver Spring resident has continued to offer a resounding yes to nearly every appeal. “It was just a natural connection that just happened,” she says.

Among the first to reach out was philanthropist, motivational speaker and entrepreneur Tasheka Green. Weeks after seeing Mitchell on-air for the first time, Green emailed her to ask if she’d emcee the Deborah C. Offer Bulgin Memorial Foundation’s annual gala, named in memory of Green’s mother, who died of stomach cancer at the age of 53. The gala was being held online that year due to the pandemic. “I was just drawn to [Mitchell’s] passion. … I saw so much love, so much life, so much purpose in her,” Green says.

Green shared with Mitchell that the foundation awards a scholarship at the gala to a woman who has improved the lives of others so that she can continue with her professional education. “I shared the context and background … and [Mitchell] was like, ‘What a great way to honor and celebrate your mom’s legacy, by awarding women who give back to their community. … I would love to be a part,’ ” Green recalls.

Since then, Mitchell has participated in hundreds of events, from Prince George’s County’s Dancing With the Stars (raising thousands of dollars to fight domestic violence) to gatherings in support of the arts in D.C.’s Anacostia neighborhood to events here in Montgomery County. “She’s not just this distinguished journalist and media personality, but she [is] someone who exemplifies virtues of resilience and grace and determination,” Green says. “She always wants to shine the light on [other] people.”

Mitchell got her journalistic start as a teenager in Atlanta, co-hosting her high school’s televised morning news show, the same show anchored by television personality Ryan Seacrest a decade earlier. When it was time for college, she was offered a full-tuition scholarship to Emory University, not far from her home, where she majored in journalism and political science. After graduation and a couple of advertising and newspaper jobs in Atlanta, she was awarded another full-tuition scholarship, this time from the McCormick Foundation, to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Illinois, where she earned her master’s degree.

On-air reporting jobs followed: Chattanooga, Tennessee; then in Birmingham, Alabama; and later at Fox 5 in Atlanta, where she stayed for four and a half years before being offered a full-time anchor position in D.C.

Over the course of her career, she’s covered events from the 50th anniversary of the civil rights march on Selma to the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. She has interviewed celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Clint Eastwood to wellness guru Deepak Chopra. Many of her stories have earned national recognition, including her celebrity-filled tribute to the late “Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin, which earned her a Salute to Excellence Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. She’s also been inducted into Emory’s Hall of Fame, and its 40 Under 40, which “celebrates young alumni who represent the very best in achievement and service,” according to the university.

The stories that mean the most to her, though, are those that show how regular people can inspire others, she says. This summer she won a Capital Emmy award for a discussion series she produced and hosted on mental health awareness, and earlier this year she introduced the weekly Fox 5 feature Motivation with Marissa, where she profiles local women who have overcome tremendous odds. She brought the idea to fruition “in hopes that [their] stories will inspire and empower others,” she says. “To develop trust and to be effective, you have to be a part of the community that you report on, and you should want to be.”

Karyn Onyeneho

It was 2014, and Karyn Onyeneho was feeling overwhelmed. “I remember in the parking lot walking to my car in the rain,” she recalls. “I didn’t even want to put up my umbrella. I was like, I don’t know if I can do this.”

At the time, she was holding down a full-time, high-security clearance position with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and driving almost daily from Silver Spring to George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, to earn her master’s degree in health informatics, a three-year program she was determined to complete in one year. She’d already graduated magna cum laude from Howard University, earning a bachelor’s degree in health sciences and management on a full scholarship in half the time of most students. 

“I know, it’s crazy … but I do thrive in challenging situations,” says Onyeneho, who went on to earn her Ph.D. from Howard in nutritional sciences in 2022, graduating at the top of her class while working full time at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda.

Now 41 and living in Burtonsville, Onyeneho is one of the nation’s leaders in the fields of human genetics and experimental nutrition. The first in her family to earn a Ph.D., she is senior advisor for federal policy on genomic data sharing and chair of the Data Access Committee at NIH’s National Institute on Aging (NIA).

It’s a complicated title, as many of hers have been. Suffice it to say she’s spent much of her adult life focused on improving the health outcomes of people from every walk of life.

Long before she became a geneticist and nutrition scientist, it was clear that she was going to make an impact, says her mentor, Charles Kenny, who taught her early on at Prince George’s Community College. Even then, he says, “She was leaps and bounds beyond the other students in the class.”

For the past 10 years, Onyeneho’s focus has been on the BIPOC community, which includes Black people, indigenous populations and people of color. She got her motivation after her dad’s mother died of Type 2 diabetes and hadn’t been well enough in her later years to travel from her native Nigeria to the U.S. for treatments. Her mom’s father succumbed to the same disease years earlier. 

Onyeneho, a first-generation Nigerian American, started investigating the genetic determinants of Type 2 diabetes in adults of African ancestry and the expressed genes that contribute to the disease. “I realized, wow, so this is a disease that impacts many people, particularly people of color … we actually are born with genes that predispose us to this disease,” she says. “That’s really what led me to want to continue to stay in the space of genomics.”

After raising money through GoFundMe to travel to Botswana as a doctoral candidate to compare dietary patterns of African and African American adults as risk factors for Type 2 diabetes, she took a job in 2018 with NIH’s All of Us Research Program, a historic initiative focused on treating every individual using precision medicine. As she moved into leadership roles at NIH, she found herself frustrated that there weren’t more resources or nutritional interventions tailored to people of color.

On her own, she founded a website, Color of Genes, that continues to gain traction in the field. She hopes it one day will serve as a digital health directory for people across the BIPOC community to connect with BIPOC providers who can help them understand their genetic disease predisposition to diabetes and other diseases, and can address cultural and language barriers that create obstacles to appropriate care.

“I thought, well, what if I were to develop an informational web page that … sheds light on … what is genomics, what is genetic research … why is the field limited in representation across different racial and ethnic groups, [and] how can we bridge that gap.”

For example, she says, “My grandmother … didn’t speak fluent English. It would [have been] great if … she could have had a provider that … [spoke] Igbo [a language spoken in southeastern Nigeria.]”

Profiled in Glamour magazine as one of its 2022 College Women of the Year, Onyeneho called herself a maverick for change. She still sees herself that way. As a woman and a Nigerian American, “I’m like a unicorn in the genomic space,” she says.

“There are … not a lot of … people of color who are … geneticists or even genetic counselors,” she adds, and that means there are too few people in the field who understand the cultural values that make certain communities hesitant to join clinical trials or donate blood for genomic analysis. If we better understood these communities’ cultural beliefs, perhaps we could better engage these communities, she says.

“I lost two grandparents to the same disease on different sides of my family. … If not for anything, maybe I can save someone else’s grandpa or grandma.”

Rosario ‘Paola’ Velasquez

As soon as Paola Velasquez opens the classroom door, a swarm of kindergartners drape their arms around her in a tight embrace. Little girls with box braids and pigtails, little boys with cornrows and close-cropped Afros—some with shy smiles, others with excited laughs—they quickly pile on, and the hug circle around their principal grows bigger and bigger. The same thing happens in nearly every classroom she enters.

It’s been five years since Velasquez, 44, took over the reins of Jackson Road Elementary School in Silver Spring’s White Oak neighborhood. It’s a Title 1 school with a minority population of more than 95%, where more than 75% of the students qualify for free meals. She started in the role only months before the pandemic hit. Since she’s been at the helm, the school rose from a 3-star rating to a 4-star, according to the Maryland State Department of Education, making it one of only four Title 1 elementary schools in the county (out of 40, according to Velasquez) to earn a 4-star rating for the 2022-23 school year, the most current rating year available. “Many schools throughout the state decreased a star, but we increased,” she says. 

The school now offers free evening English language classes for parents and guardians (along with free child care); a soccer program; two private-practice therapists who administer one-on-one mental health services to students at no charge; a dentist who cleans students’ teeth for free; and an optometrist who provides complimentary vision checks and eyeglasses, says Chris Callisto, Jackson Road’s Community School Liaison.

During the 2023-24 school year, Jackson Road  opened a food pantry, and it began sending bags of food home on Fridays to 80 families. “When you are a child … and your basic needs aren’t being met because of poverty, you’re not thinking so much about going to college … you’re more worried about getting something to eat or clothing or making sure that you’re not going to be homeless,” Velasquez says.

Velasquez knows what it’s like to grow up poor in Montgomery County. She came here from Peru with her parents and three brothers when she was 8. All six lived in the basement of a relative’s house in Germantown while her dad worked as a janitor and painter, and her mom cleaned houses. Her parents saved enough money to move into an apartment, and eventually to buy a small home in Germantown.

When Velasquez graduated from Seneca Valley High School in Germantown in 1998, she watched as other students went off to college. She hadn’t been instructed how to sign up for SATs, fill out college applications or plan for her future. Instead, she took a job as an aide at a day care center, saved money to buy a car, then to pay for classes at Montgomery College, and then to earn her bachelor’s degree in elementary education at the University of Maryland, College Park.

While working as a second grade teacher at Whetstone Elementary School in Gaithersburg, she took evening classes to earn her master’s degree in educational leadership and administration, and was propelled toward the principal track, she says, by something one of her professors, a retired MCPS principal, told her: When you have a classroom of 26 or 27 kids, you can impact that many students a year; when you are a principal, you can impact an entire school’s worth of students.

She worked at Weller Road Elementary School in Silver Spring and at Jackson Road, before being named the assistant principal at Germantown’s Sally K. Ride Elementary, and principal intern at Poolesville Elementary. When the top spot opened at Jackson Road, she applied and was selected.

Now the Germantown resident and the single mom of a 15-year-old boy conducts her meetings in English and Spanish so that new families feel welcome, says staff development teacher Jacqueline Cody. And she doesn’t spend her school days behind her desk. “She is in classrooms, responding to support calls and meeting with parents,” Cody says. “This may not sound so significant, but I have worked for several principals, and I can tell you that it is.”

Under Velasquez’s leadership, the staff receives extra trauma response training because so many Jackson Road students require extra emotional support. “This is something we have invested a lot of time in this year,” Cody says, “because she saw the need and created the space for us to do this.”

“Sometimes, you know, we have kids who … are having a hard time, they’re going through … a crisis, basically [and] it can take … hours out of my day for me to talk to that child,” Velasquez says. “They’re not ready to learn.”

But her goal is to keep them learning and all the while feeling confident and supported. After all, she says, “they’re going to be the ones who are going to be leading us in the future.” 

The post Meet Bethesda Magazine’s 2024 Women Who Inspire recipients appeared first on MoCo360.

For Darnestown resident Rob Gresham, a teachable moment during the pandemic led to Isaac’s Poultry Market, a Gaithersburg fast-casual restaurant specializing in chicken, sold roasted, fried (tenders, wings and sandwiches) and in chicken salad. Sides, salads and frozen custard round out the fare.

Explaining to his sons Robbie and Jackson (now 17 and 16) four years ago that the world has faced pandemics before and prevailed, Gresham relayed that Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravity and invented calculus while quarantined for the plague in 1665. As a learning opportunity to go along with virtual schooling, he had Jackson help write a business plan for an imaginary restaurant; his son suggested they name it after Newton, and Isaac’s Poultry Market was born. Gresham says he focused on chicken because from his first-hand experience running and consulting for fast-casual brands, the protein accounts for more than 50% of their sales.

Gresham’s no stranger to the restaurant business. His first job while growing up in Montgomery County was at Chesapeake Bay Seafood House in Burtonsville, where he started as a dishwasher and became a cook at 16 while attending Paint Branch High School. “I’ve been in restaurants and kitchens ever since,” he says.

His resume includes many now-closed Montgomery County establishments, among them Eatzi’s Market & Bakery in Rockville, Cafe Deluxe in Bethesda and Harry’s Cafe in Silver Spring, where he met his wife, Christine, who was bartending there while attending law school. From there, he climbed the corporate ladder, working for successful powerhouses including Founding Farmers, Chipotle and Cava, which he joined in 2010. He says he helped develop the Cava Mezze Grill brand (now known as Cava) as the business grew to 80 restaurants, with 20 in the pipeline. “My job was morphing into an office guy, but I like building and creating,” Gresham says. He left in 2019 and started a restaurant consulting business. 

When the pandemic hit, Gresham says, restaurants didn’t need consultants, and he found himself at home baking bread like everyone else. He moved forward with Isaac’s, and the 2,400-square-foot space opened in February 2023. (It’s called a market because the plan is to offer retail items in the future, such as baked goods and olive oil.) 

It took two years to develop the recipes. The roast chicken is dry-rubbed for 24 hours with a blend of za’atar, cumin, smoked paprika, garlic and other spices and roasted in a combi oven (a combination convection and steam injection oven) to keep it moist. In August, the fried chicken breast Isaac sandwich (toasted potato bun, broccoli slaw, dill pickles and a mustard honey barbecue sauce) won the 2023 Restaurant Association of Maryland’s Best Sandwich competition. “I put a giant banner on the store about it, and sales skyrocketed,” Gresham says. The win qualified him to enter the World Food Championship in Dallas in November, where he finished in the top 10 and was invited to compete in next year’s competition. 

A second location of Isaac’s is slated to open in the Burtonsville Crossing development in Burtonsville at the end of the year.

Isaac’s Poultry Market
12163 Darnestown Road, Gaithersburg
240-477-5037
isaacs.market

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Sylvia Bugg, 53, describes her job at PBS as “the chief question asker.” Officially she’s the network’s chief programming executive and general manager for general audience programming, a major position that puts her in charge of “any content that’s on PBS that’s not kids’ content,” she says. Shows she’s brought to air include fan favorites “The Great American Recipe,” “Next at the Kennedy Center” and “Southern Storytellers.” The Clarksburg resident spent several years at Silver Spring’s Discovery Communications before returning to her second employer out of college, PBS, where she has been since October 2020. We asked the chief question asker about what she’s learned along the way. 

I had a former boss who oversaw production programming [at Discovery] who was also a mentor. He said something in front of me to someone else: “Sylvia can do anything.” I was really just starting out in the cable world and beginning to understand how it all worked and where I would fit in that experience. And just hearing that really stayed with me.

What he meant was that I could grow into doing many things as it related to my career. At that stage of my career and my life I don’t think I had quite fully realized what my potential was, so when he said that, it meant so much to me. People will often comment on your abilities or your skill, especially early in your career, when you are not in the room, but to hear someone say that when you are in the room—well, it has stayed with me for 20 or 25 years. It instilled in me the confidence to know that if I really put my head down, worked really hard, kept being a really good listener, and surrounded myself with positive people, that I could do anything. 

There has always been this idea in leadership that you have to do it all. At some point in my career I felt I could do it all. I can do anything, right? But maybe not all of it. So in some ways those two ideas combined: Doing it all and doing everything. But that was not quite right.

The signs of a good leader are those who surround themselves with other great leaders and great teams. Early on, I probably did not fully understand that. I may have had situations where I was trying to juggle too much and really needed to think about what it meant to be a good leader. It really is a 360-degree experience. So often we have to manage up, we manage across, we manage down. But the whole idea is 360-degrees leadership, and for me, that’s been a valuable lesson. 

I try to think about ways to be influential and be a good contributor and be collaborative—and that will really take you far. That’s one of the principles I’ve tried to live by and lead by—through example. 

—As told to Buzz McClain

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A Food Idea 

Take a grassy patch of land, add a bunch of edible plants, herbs, flowers, vines, bushes and trees, and pretty soon it’s a “food forest” where people can harvest a free bite to eat. That’s the idea behind the appetizing new landscaping at Montgomery College’s Takoma Park/Silver Spring Campus. Student Tierney Acosta (pictured) spearheaded the project and worked with volunteers to turn about 30,000 square feet of land into an eventual buffet of blueberries, apples, pawpaws, tomatoes, peas and more. Acosta’s hoping to help fellow students at Montgomery College who are facing food insecurity. It’ll take two years for the forest to reach its full potential. We can’t wait to see if other food forests sprout up.

Intersection of Chicago and Philadelphia avenues, Silver Spring

Super Scoops

There are “no angry people at an ice cream shop,” according to Germantown’s Bonnie Cosby, 65, and that’s why she has become a “chief ice cream artisan” in her retirement. Cosby (pictured left), who started Sunshine Creamery in 2022, says she uses milk from South Mountain Creamery in Frederick County and aims to make ice cream that tastes like her grandmother’s. She says she leaves out preservatives, additives, stabilizers and artificial flavors and colors. Pre-scooped cups (about 6 ounces) sell for $6 at farmers markets in the county, and flavors vary based on what her fellow vendors are selling (think cherries) as well as whatever strikes her fancy. Indulging your sweet tooth can also help others—Cosby says she donates 10% of her earnings from the Shady Grove Farmers Market to Rockville Help. 

sunshinecreamerymd.com

Beachy Swings 

Montgomery County’s first outdoor beach tennis court debuted in April at the 18.3-acre Nike Missile Local Park in Gaithersburg. Combining elements of beach volleyball, badminton and traditional tennis, beach tennis just might be the next pickleball. Thanks to an adjustable net system, the sand court also can be used for volleyball matches.

Open sunrise to sunset. Free; first come, first served.
8500 Snouffer School Road, Gaithersburg, montgomeryparks.org/parks-and-trails/nike-missile-local-park

Prints Charming

For the swellest children’s clothes in town, head to the new boutique Pink Chicken. The wee dresses, rompers, swimsuits and other pieces come in sweet patterns, including plenty of summery picks, such as lobsters and ice pops. Girls grab the spotlight here, but boys clothes are on the racks, too. Sizes range from newborn to 14Y. Grown-ups also will find a few options, such as flowy frocks just made for beach days and the occasional shirt for men, maybe adorned with mallards or grilling gear. 

4925 Elm St., Bethesda, 240-967-1742, pinkchicken.com

Patio Upgrade 

Summer is for eating outside, and we’re loving the updated patio at Founding Farmers in Park Potomac. Opened in March, the patio has been expanded from 80 seats to 135 and is accented with basil green pillars and beams and filled with plants. Fans, heaters, retractable sides and a louvered roof extend the outdoor season. Because, really, fall, winter and spring are for outdoor dining, too. 

12505 Park Potomac Ave., Potomac,
301-340-8783, wearefoundingfarmers.com

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The couple: Laura Doherty Miller, 33, grew up in Laytonsville and graduated from Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Olney. She is a sales director for Scout Bags. Robert Miller, 32, grew up in Scaggsville, Maryland, and graduated from Reservoir High School in Howard County. He is an accountant for United Therapeutics Corp. They live in Silver Spring with their dog, a pit bull mix named Millie.  

How they met: Laura was introduced to Robert by her old high school friends, who attended the University of Maryland with him. But their romance took several years—and a little friendly intervention—to develop. “Our friends probably had a bigger role in it than we would admit,” says Laura, recalling how one of her pals (and eventual bridesmaids) told Robert to take her on a date to the Sauf Haus Bier Hall & Garten in Washington, D.C., in 2016. “That’s how we ended up actually dating,” she says. “That kicked it off.” 

The proposal: On a hot August day in 2022, Robert brought a ring along on a hike the couple took at Virginia’s Turkey Run Park. As they came across a picturesque spot along the Potomac River, Laura suggested they prop her phone up and take a video of themselves. “Totally not what I had anticipated” while preparing to pop the question, recalls Robert. But he​ embraced the moment​​​​​. “He turns and says, ‘Are you ready?’ And I said, ‘Ready for what?’ ” Laura says. “And then he proposes and I’m, like, full-blown meltdown status.” 

The ceremony: The pair tied the knot at St. Edmond Roman Catholic Church in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on June 23, 2023. “It felt full,” says the bride of the intimate venue, the perfect size for their 140 guests. ​Deciding to get married in a beach town​​​​​, the newlyweds say, was a no-brainer—it resembled a “destination wedding,” Robert says, without being too much of a trek for their local guests.  

The reception: After the ceremony, guests took buses to the reception at Rehoboth Beach Country Club, where oversized windows bathed the ballroom in natural light and offered exquisite bay views. But one of the bride’s favorite memories came en route to the venue. “Being on that bus for a moment of just, Holy crap, we just did that, was really just so fun,” she recalls. 

The decor: To help achieve the vision of a “French whimsy garden party at the beach,” Laura says, a green-and-pink color scheme dominated the decor, from the napkins to the table signage to the matchbooks that guests took home as party favors. The table-scapes featured understated bouquets of buds such as anemones and baby’s breath, and above the dance floor hung a cluster of disco balls strewn with greenery. Rather than signing a guest book, guests inscribed notes on a framed print depicting a kitchen table—a peaceful scene that the bride envisions “hanging in our house forever.” 

The dress: The Alena Leena gown that Laura discovered at Garnish Boutique in Towson, Maryland, was picked out with the June date in mind. “It was really nice to wear during the summer, and it just felt really lightweight and fun to dance in,” she says. She paired the dress with Loeffler Randall heels, completing the ensemble with her sister’s veil and a pearl bracelet that belonged to her late mother. “Basically, everything was something borrowed or sentimental,” says the bride. Millie, the couple’s dog, looked on as Laura got ready the morning of the wedding, but the pup did not attend the ceremony. “She can’t be trusted,” Robert says.

The music: ​​​​After a first dance to ​a recording of ​the Schitt’s Creek cover of “Simply the Best,” Robert and his mom took to the dance floor for ​​“You’ll Be in My Heart” by Phil Collins. “She’s bawling her eyes out,” recalls Robert. “Her favorite song is ‘Shut Up and Dance,’ and I was like, ‘It’s the first song. Just keep it together and we’ll have a good time.’ ” Indeed, they did, with the music makers, 76 Degrees West Band, playing that tune and other favorites. “They were outrageous,” Robert says, recalling the group’s jazzy vibe.​​ Donning heart-shaped sunglasses—another party favor—guests boogied to ​crowd-pleasers such as​​ “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” and “September.” “Honestly, everyone was out there, like, the whole night,” says Robert. 

The food: The country club catered the feast, starting with his-and-hers signature cocktails (an Orange Crush for Robert and an Aperol spritz for Laura). For the main dish, guests chose from miso-glazed salmon, beef short ​​​​rib or a stuffed poblano pepper over rice. After the cutting of the cake—a small white buttercream—guests chowed down on a spread of cannoli, chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream.  

The afterparty: Guests headed to the Summer House restaurant after the reception, but the merrymaking didn’t stop there: The next day, the newlyweds invited people to join them for a beach excursion. “It was nice to see everybody with no pressure to get dressed up for a dinner or a breakfast,” the bride says.  

The honeymoon: Later in the summer, the newlyweds spent nearly two weeks traveling through Portugal: They took an electric bike tour through Lisbon, lounged on a boat in Lagos, and “sat in the resort for four days” on the Azores, Laura says. 

Vendors: Band, 76 Degrees West Band; catering and venue, Rehoboth Beach Country Club; church, St. Edmond Roman Catholic Church; dress, Garnish Boutique; florist, Innerbloom Floral; hair, East Coast Bridal; photography, Lily Morgan Photography; videography, Fordham Films. 

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For Chris Brown, taking one of his two young daughters to the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., for high tea soon after opening Zinnia in September 2022 inspired a profitable idea. It was so delightful an experience that he test-ran weekend tea at the Silver Spring restaurant this past holiday season, intending to end it after the new year. It was such a huge hit that he kept it going; now it runs on Saturdays and Sundays, with 90-minute 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. seatings in two rooms near the restaurant’s entrance.

The charming low-ceilinged parlor room original to the 1850 house that once served as Mrs. K’s Toll House restaurant features a white brick fireplace and glass cases filled with myriad china tea sets. Patterned wallpaper brings to mind a country estate’s library. Tables are set genteelly with white tablecloths, forest green cloth napkins, porcelain sugar bowls with tongs, cups and saucers and tea strainers. “My father-in-law accumulated tea sets from estate sales, and guests called offering family heirloom tea sets because their kids weren’t interested in them,” Brown says.

The 12 Harney & Sons tea offerings (four black, two green, two white and four herbal) include traditional varieties such as Earl Grey, Darjeeling and Japanese Sencha and flavored offerings, among them Royal Wedding (Chinese Mutan white tea with rosebuds, vanilla and coconut) and black tea enhanced with chocolate and peppermint leaves. The teapot is brought with a three-minute hourglass timer to take the guesswork out of steeping.

A triple-tiered serving plate teems with treats, including tea sandwiches (ham; smoked salmon; mango chutney chicken salad; egg and cress; cucumber; brie and fig), pastries (croissants, cheddar scallion biscuits, cranberry scones and pistachio madeleines) and desserts (lemon meringue tart and chocolate mousse). Accompaniments include Chantilly cream, jams and honey butter. Tea costs $60 per adult ($70 with a glass of sparkling wine) and $40 per child. Reservations require a $25 deposit per person.

Zinnia, 9201 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, 301-704-6653

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