World Water Day Concert
On Tuesday, March 21, the NOVA Community Chorus (Dr. Mark Whitmire, Director) presented A World Water Day Concert in Schlesinger Concert Hall. The event was co-sponsored by The Federal Water Quality Association, Water For People, and The Alice Ferguson Foundation, a local non-profit organization that focuses on cleaning up the Potomac River. In attendance were Dr. Scott Ralls (NVCC President), Mr. Rob Johnson (NVCC Director of Sustainability), and Michael Deane, former Associate Assistant Administrator for Water in the Environmental Protection Agency. The event featured water-themed music by NOVA Community Chorus, music students Margaret Bisulca and Riley Baisch, and music faculty member Christine Hagan. There was also a dance performance by the Metropolitan Youth Tap Ensemble. Original poems on the theme of water were read by poetry contest winners Martha Evans, Bernie Cohen, Conrado Muluc and Shannon Nelson. Winners were selected by a faculty panel from among more than thirty submissions by NVCC students
29th Annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup
On Saturday, April 8th, thirty members of the chorus, friends and family and other NOVA students participated in the 29th Annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup. They gathered to pick up trash and marine debris along the shoreline of the Potomac River at Hard Bargain Farm, located on the Maryland side of the Potomac, across from Mt. Vernon. Last year the Alice Ferguson Foundation, organizer of the cleanup, picked up over 950,000 pounds of trash from the river. These NVCC students picked up approximately 20 thirty-gallon bags of trash.