News

Just Kids Receives 2020 Ashby Award

January 30, 2020

DRF announced that Just Kids Child Development Center, Inc. has been selected to receive the 2020 B.R. Ashby, M.D. Award for Outstanding Community Service.

Casino Impact Study to Be Presented December 5

November 6, 2019

DRF invites community members to a free breakfast event on Thursday, December 5 at 7:30 a.m. at the Institute for Advanced Learning & Research to hear Fourth Economy Consulting present their findings on the potential impacts of a proposed gambling casino and entertainment complex on Danville and the surrounding communities. 

Mural shows kids floating to a better future

October 16, 2019

The mural covers an entire side of the two-story building and so far includes yellow, red, black and blue colors on a mostly white background, with the outlines of children stretching above one of the center’s parking lots. When it’s finished, the mural will depict children floating away via opened umbrellas toward a better future.

Nominations Open for 2020 Ashby Award

August 5, 2019

Nominations of area nonprofits are now being accepted at Danville Regional Foundation (DRF) for the next B. R. Ashby, M.D. Award for Outstanding Community Service. This award, in the amount of $50,000, is a general operating grant named in appreciation of the exemplary service and selfless leadership of B. R. Ashby, M. D., a founding Board Member and first Chairman of the DRF.

Three Big Lessons from One Small Town

July 18, 2019

Here is another look at the far-southern-Virginia town of Danville: once a thriving tobacco-and-textile center, now trying to figure out what to do after all the mills have shut down.

In keeping with the previously announced intention to keep drawing connections, parallel themes, and lessons from the communities we visit, here are three aspects of Danville’s story worth noticing elsewhere, as boiled down as I can make them. A summary:

• First, Danville’s civic renewal shows the importance of a relatively new form of philanthropy.
• Second, it shows the importance of creative use of a onetime historical event—in this case, the “tobacco settlement,” which directed billions of dollars from the tobacco industry to local institutions. (This naturally leads to questions about whether a comparable “opioid settlement” might have similar transformative effects.)
• Third, it shows the importance of public investment in infrastructure, specifically in broadband capacity.