“Going green” is a new concept that has everyone talking. People are realizing the importance of conserving energy, reducing waste and recycling materials in order to improve the state of our environment and preserve our planet’s future. Go Green NRV is an organization recently created to ensure that businesses in the New River Valley are doing their part in being environmentally friendly. (more…)

The local community theatre organization New River Stage will host the ageless production The Adventures of Tom Sawyer this weekend at The Wesley Foundation in Blacksburg. (more…)

Small business owners and business development professionals have given high marks to the “Online Business Guidebook,” produced by Pamplin College of Business and other students at Virginia Tech. (more…)

As of this weekend, Blacksburg will be the home to another unique locally owned business. The Main Lee Art gallery will open its doors to the public on Saturday, Feb. 27, for an eye-opening display of the artistic skills this area has to offer.

Located on the corner of South Main and Lee streets, the gallery is in a prime location for downtown shoppers to stop in and check it out. The old building has had several different functions in the past, including the site of the specialty store “For The Birds,” and an Internet café that closed years ago. (more…)

Hey Voice readers, it’s been a crazy winter thus far, hasn’t it? With all the wintry weather, we’re hearing new words in our New River Valley lexicon such as “snoverload” and “snopacalypse.”

We’ve had days and days in which the schools have been closed, shoveling snow has become routine, and we all fear our power bills. We’ve heard, here and there, some interesting snow stories of this season, and we want to chronicle those. So we’re trying something new. We want to here your snow stories. How have you dealt with the kids being out of school all these days? What has created laughs or tears, joys or pains, as we trudge through this winter?

Write your brief story in the section below where it says “Leave a Comment,” and we’ll continue to add to this as winter wears on here in the NRV.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

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The following story and photo come from Patricia Robin Woodruff of Floyd:

We had an ice storm around here and my daughter, Coriander, and I were looking outside at the weeping cherry with ice coated branches. I was saying I wanted to do a painting to capture it and she suggested that she go out in a white outfit and get her picture taken in the tree (it’s her favorite tree, after all.)

So I found a white kimono she could wear and then I remembered that a few days ago I was cleaning up and had tossed a dry flower wreath outside onto a bush (it had been crumbling apart and I figured it would sort of decorate the outside.) It had gotten covered in the ice too, so it was perfect!

So, Coriander and I went out into the sleet with the camera, but the tree was too icy for her to climb, so I just had her stand in front of the cascading branches of the tree. If anyone saw us, they’d probably think we were nuts standing out in the ice, snow, and sleet, but it was so worth it!

Shane Claiborne, activist and author, delivered a talk at Radford University on Tuesday, inviting guests who braved the winter weather to “Another Way of Doing Life.” Claiborne is co-founder of The Simple Way, an intentional community in Philadelphia that’s a part of the movement in Christianity called New Monasticism. While he didn’t explicitly mention the 12 Marks of New Monasticism, much of the talk was based on these tenets, including hospitality, peacemaking, sharing economic resources, and caring for the earth. (more…)