Thursday, January 8, 2026
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Arlington and Alexandria’s VCE Financial Education Programs
The Master Financial Education Volunteers provide numerous
financial literacy classes, both online and in person. These classes,
programmed and managed by staff, involve goal setting, budgeting, paying off
debt, saving, investing, and retirement.
Examples of these classes,
Living Well on a Fixed Income
Managing Debt
Spring Cleaning: Controlling Clutter
Financial Goals & Budgeting Basics
Budgeting for Groceries
Traveling on a Budget
Credit Reports & Credit Scores
Banking, Saving Strategies & Financial Apps
Retirement Planning
Investing Basics
Preventing Identity Theft
Talking to Children About Money
Controlling Clutter
Federal Tax Basics
Estate Planning
Money Talk -- A comprehensive personal finance education
series for women.
For more information on programs and to enquire about
programs and classes, go to:
https://arlington.ext.vt.edu/programs/financial-education.html
Several of the programs are conducted in Spanish.
In recent years, volunteers have led many “Money Smarts Pay”
classes at local affordable housing complexes, including curriculum required
for qualification under the “save and earn” aspects of an Individual
Development Account project. Extension staff and volunteers run dozens of
financial simulation and game programs for Arlington Public Schools elementary,
middle and high school students. We also
run teen age financial literacy classes at various apartment complexes and
community centers.
Financial Coaching. Extension offers a free financial coaching
program for area residents, helping them
https://arlington.ext.vt.edu/programs/financial-education/find-a-counselor.html
Friday, December 6, 2024
Seeking new Leadership Council members for 2025:
promoting the Extension's presence and
services to the community at large.
We are seeking community members to participate in our monthly meetings and occasional in-person activities regardless of whether you have a new and growing interest or extensive expertise in the program areas represented in our office:
- 4-H Youth Development Hands-on Learning
- Animal Sciences and Agriculture
- Computer Science and AI
- Health Sciences
- Horticulture/Gardening
- Invention and Innovation
- Agriculture and Natural Resources
- Family and Consumer Sciences
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Energy Masters - New Year
On December 1 the Energy Masters volunteers completed their first work day for fiscal year 2013.
Six teams with three to four people on each provided energy and water saving services in 16 apartments at Marbella Apartments, a building owned by the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing.
Teams consisted of newly trained volunteers and at least one experienced volunteer from last year. In each apartment team members caulked leaks, cleaned refrigerator coils, opened air vent covers and vacuumed out the accumulated dust, installed energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs,
outlet gaskets, and low-flow showerheads and faucet aerators.
The goal of this program is to help low-income apartment residents save at least 10% on their
utility bills and also to improve the efficiency in buildings so that greenhouse gas emissions will be minimized.
Since the program began in the fall of 2011 volunteers have provided energy retrofits in 121 apartments and have installed 812 energy efficient CFL light bulbs, 1,857 outlet gaskets, 186 faucet aerators, 101 low-flow showerheads, and gave out 85 power strips.
Six additional work days are scheduled for 2013 with the goal of providing services in 150 apartment units. Stay tuned for more reports of how much energy residents save as a result of these efforts.
If you would like to become an Energy Master, please contact Jennifer at jabel@vt.edu.
Winter Offerings from Ag and Natural Resources - ANR
Welcome to winter! Around here, we do not really have much cold weather until
January and February and some of our heaviest snows have come in March. With
reports of active insects as late as the middle of January to corroborate, we really
do not consider our landscape to be dormant until January. This information is
important to keep in mind as we look at the natural cycle of insect and disease pests
and contemplate the dormant woody plant pruning that is a regular winter
chore.
Our Master Gardener intern training that completed its classroom portion
will resume this month as we do our end of the month Pruning Practicum.
In January, the Master Gardener led public education outreach is conducting a 6-week
“Making Your Yard Sustainable” training. The curriculum utilizes the adapted
Landscape for Life materials developed by the U.S. Botanical Garden. They will
offer a small group of people a chance to do an in-depth analysis of the features and
processes of their home landscape with an eye to reducing the impact of
development and maximizing benefits to the environment.
Extension is proud to sponsor a joint Master Gardener/Master Naturalist volunteer led effort to provide home visits as part of the Audubon At Home program that seeks to educate residents
about ways to use their landscaped garden areas to enhance
and support our native insect and bird populations.
This training will be followed soon with the offering of a yearlong series of Sustainable Urban
Agriculture Classes that start with January’s ‘Grasses for the Masses’ on January 12.
This is all a warm up for public education pruning classes that are available to the public in February. Look for our calendar of pruning classes on our website that are
arranged in partnership with Tree Stewards of Arlington/Alexandria volunteers.
Tree Stewards work with county staff and city of Alexandria urban forestry programs to promote increased tree canopy, proper tree selection for planting, and beneficial maintenance practices.
Go to Tree Stewards website: www.treestewards.org to learn about the 2013 volunteer training class that will begin in February.
Welcome Megan Mauer, Nutrition Outreach Instructor
Megan Mauer is a 2010 graduate of Virginia Tech with a Bachelor of Science in Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise concentrating in dietetics.
Previously Megan has served 1,700 hours with the Pittsburgh Health Corps where she assisted HIV positive clients with making healthy food choices from the agency’s food pantry. She also
interned with Share Our Strength’s, Cooking Matters program, where she provided support to the evaluation team. She has also worked for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) as a nutritionist educating and providing referrals for low-income moms and children under the age of 5.
Megan is very excited and eager to begin her new role as Nutrition Outreach Instructor for the Northern District. Through this opportunity Megan will be able to provide free trainings for volunteers to teach
wide-ranging nutrition curriculum for youth and adults. Megan is based out of Alexandria, and will be covering: Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford Counties.
Welcome to Susan Pollack
On Dec. 28 Susan Pollack joined our staff in a temporary county-funded position
as coordinator of the Master Gardener volunteer program. She is filling in for Kim
Haun who has been temporarily re-assigned to head the county’s urban agriculture
task force.
Susan is retired after working at USDA's Economic Research Service
(ERS) for 30 years. While at ERS, Susan specialized in agricultural and rural
labor force issues, U.S. agricultural policy and legislation, US agricultural trade.
For her final 16 years, she was a senior analyst covering the world fruit and tree nut industries.
Susan has both an MS and BS in Agricultural Economics from Penn State and the University of Massachusetts. Since retiring in 2010, Susan has volunteered as an assistant Market
Master at the Upper King Street Farmers Market in Alexandria, and become a certified Master Gardener with the Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia (MGNV).
She is also an enthusiastic yoga student. Susan will be working in our office 20 hours/week, so please stop in to say hello.
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