Inside A3 Cobb Technologies raises $15,000 in support of Backpacks of Love
Powhatan, Virginia
B1 Knights have strong showing at Collegiate swim meet
Vol. XXX No. 3
January 18, 2017
Powhatan Chamber of Commerce Annual Petition picks up Celebration scheduled to be held Jan. 26 signatures to save historic Belmead Staff Report
The Powhatan County Chamber of Commerce will present its Annual Celebration from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26, at the Independence Golf Club at 600 Founders Bridge Blvd. in Midlothian. The Kathy Budner Award will be presented at 6:30 p.m. Heavy hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar will be available. The cost is $10 per person. The Chamber will celebrate the successes of the past year and the promise that 2017 holds. For more information, contact the Chamber office at 804-598-2636 or info@powhatanchamber.org. The The ‘Annual Celebration’ will be held from from 5:30 to 8 p.m. address is 3887 Old Buckingham on Thursday, Jan. 26, at the Independence Golf Club at 600 Rd. in Powhatan.
HAPPY
NEW YEAR
Founders Bridge Blvd. in Midlothian.
New ways to dispose of unwanted medication Contributed Report
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DELIVER TO: Postal Patron Powhatan, VA 23139
Prsrt. Standard U.S. POSTAGE PAID Powhatan, VA Permit No.19
he Rural Substance Abuse Awareness Coalition (RSAAC) for the counties of Goochland and Powhatan announced last month that drug disposal kits will be available for community members to discard leftover prescription pills. The kits were obtained by Attorney General Mark Herring as part of a comprehensive strategy to address the heroin and opioid crisis in Virginia. RSAAC was able to secure kits for distribution in Goochland and Powhatan. The biodegradable Deterra drug disposal kits from Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals can deactivate and destroy up to 45 pills each with the addition of warm tap water before being disposed of in the trash.
RSAAC estimates that at least half of the community does not know how to properly dispose of expired or unwanted medications. Drugs thrown in the garbage or flushed down the toilet can poison ground water. Families and neighbors need to be vigilant of their medicines to keep them out of the wrong hands. Store them out of reach of children
months of 2016, a 250 percent increase over 2015. There are multiple ways to dispose of expired or unwanted medications in Powhatan and Goochland. Prescription Drug Disposal Kits can be picked up for free from the following locations: Goochland Powhatan CSB Powhatan Office, 3910 Old Buck-
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Residents in Powhatan and Goochland counties will be able to properly dispose of prescription drugs thanks to special kits.
or hide or lock them up if neces- ingham Road Suite A, Powhatan. Powhatan Sheriff’s Departsary. According to the National Insti- ment, 3880A Old Buckingham tute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), 50 Road, Powhatan. Dawson’s Pharmacy, 2728 percent of people who begin abusFairground Road, Goochland. ing prescription drugs either took Goochland Pharmacy, 1956 the drug from a friend or family member’s medicine cabinet, or the Sandy Hook Road, Goochland. Goochland Powhatan CSB drug was given to them by someone Goochland Office, 3058 River Road they knew. West, GoochNIDA’s findland., ings include the Locally, following facts the Powhatan about the link be- Families and neighbors County Shertween prescription pills and heroin: need to be vigilant of iff’s Office has a drug Half of all young people who their medicines to keep disposal drop box available use heroin got started by abusing them out of the wrong 24 hours a day, seven prescription opihands. Store them out days a week. oids. Patients The number of reach of children or can talk to of Americans abusing heroin nearly hide or lock them up if their physicians and doubled from 2007 nurses for into 2012, with near- necessary. formation rely 700,000 now garding this abusing heroin. disposal. In Virginia, Some pharmacies will take in abuse and overdose deaths continue these medications, but not all. to rise: RSAAC’s vision is a commu Heroin overdose deaths have risen more than 600 percent be- nity Free from Substance Abuse. RSAAC exists to inspire, tween 2010 and 2015, from 48 to equip, and educate the people of 342. Prescription opioid overdose Goochland and Powhatan on the deaths have risen 44 percent be- issues of substance abuse. For more information about tween 2007 and 2015, from 399 RSAAC’s current initiatives, condeaths to 576. More than 500 people went to tact Robin Pentecost at rpentea Virginia emergency room from a cost@goochlandva.us or 804heroin overdose in the first four 556-5400.
FILE PHOTO BY LAURA MCFARLAND
This photo was taken through one of the distinctive windows at Belmead. The grounds extend over 2,200 acres.
By Roslyn Ryan Richmond Suburban News
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s of Sunday, an online petition seeking to save Powhatan’s historic Belmead property had garnered 2,879 signatures. The petition was created eight months ago, shortly after the Philadelphia-based Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament announced their intention to sell the 2,265-acre property, once home to two thriving educational institutions serving black and Native American students. According to a release sent out last May by Sister Donna Breslin, president of the congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, keeping the property is no longer financially sustainable. The order will use the proceeds of the sales to support their other efforts around the world. “As we prepare to celebrate in July the 125th anniversary of our Catholic religious order, we rededicate our resources to our mission serving some of the most vulnerable people in the United States, Haiti and Jamaica,” Breslin said. “We also will use proceeds from the sales to challenge, in new ways, all forms of racism as well as the other deeply rooted injustices in the world.” The news was met with shock and sadness by the handful of sisters who call the property home, as well as those devastated by the thought that such a historically significant and vulnerable property —Belmead was placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2011 -- could potentially be sold to a person or group who would not preserve it. But no matter how many people offer their support online, or contribute donations, the property’s fate now ultimately rests in the hands of Plante Moran Real Estate Investment Advisors, the group currently reviewing over a dozen separate proposals for what to do with the property. Among those proposals is one from the sisters of Belmead, who are asking to continue living on and maintaining the property. The plans were due by Dec. 19, according to Demetrius Veneble, president of the Belmead on the James Foundation, but there has been no word yet on when a decision might be made. For the sisters, there is little to do but wait. Should the property be sold, it could mean the end of an era that began in 1895, when heiress Katharine Drexel purchased the property and founded a pioneering institution to serve both African-American and Native American students. For nearly a century, St. Emma Military Academy for boys and St. Francis de Sales School offered education and opportunity to students who might not otherwise have had access to either. By the 1970s, when both schools were closed, over 15,000 students from all over the country had made a home on the serene, bucolic property. To many of the schools’ alumni, the thought of losing Belmead and all it represents is simply unthinkable. “I was a student at St. Francis,” said Gloria see BELMEAD page 7A