Music Hello everyone and welcome to the Fairfax scene. I'm your host Rachel Roth. We've got a great show and store for you today. We'll be giving you highlights from the Chocolate Lovers Festival as well as taking a look at the new City of Fairfax Regional Library. Right now we're at the Chocolate Challenge and let's take a look at these entries. 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He's one of the organizers of today's event. Hi Jim, how are you doing today? Oh, I'm doing great. And the smell in this room is just fantastic. It all smells like chocolate. Oh, it does. Making me hungry. Hey, tell us about today's event. Oh, today's event. We've got several competitors. We've got amateurs and professionals. And this year we really have some great sculptures and cakes and and they're actually for sale we've got a silent auction going on great well thanks a lot Jim and now it's time to meet the judges What we're looking for is far as in a case category is that texture of the cake, the moistness of course in the mouth, you can tell a big difference from, for example, a box cake over a scratch cake. A, in the amateurs you look for creativity, you look for somebody who really part toward the heart and soul and it took a lot of time and cared about it as opposed to just throwing something together. And in a professional's this year we didn't have as many but we had. They were very, very competitive. Well, all his chocolate has made me hungry. Let's head over to Fire Station 3 for the chocolate tip pancake breakfast. We're Jennifer Deacon, president of the Fairfax Cawanus Club and today we're having our huge pancake breakfast which is the biggest fundraiser for us during the year, and it's in conjunction with the chocolate lovers festival, which we're proud to be part of. So today, the money that we raise will be supporting families in the local Fairfax area, and also the key clubs of six high schools in the area that we sponsor. Hi, we can like poplite cheaper regular. I belong to the Aluxury to the Fairfax Volunteer Party Department. We are a group of volunteers, men and women who volunteer their time to raise money for the fire department. Today we have our bake sale, our food sale, our raffle, and 15 crafters. And one of the crafters does teddy bears and if you give some in wax so they're scented and she even has to the paper rolls scented for in your bathroom with fancy designs. We also have a lady that's doing jewelry that looks like food and the jewelry ever before end is a guy that makes flowers out of fish scales. Well this is a line for the taste of chocolate. Are you ready for some chocolate? Yeah. Alright. What are you expecting will be in there? What types of chocolate? Well I'm hoping dark chocolate. This is my favorite. Oh it sounds good. I'm guessing there's going to probably be some maybe fudge, some bun buns. Fondue. Fondue? Yeah that would be good. Chocolate strawberries. Yeah well let's go see. I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man I'm a little bit more of a man Now that was some serious chocolate. You see what this event is all about but I am here with the chair of the chocolate lovers festival as well as one of the organizers of this event Beverly Myers. Hi Beverly how are you? Good how are you? Great well you've got a lot of chocolate here. We do we're very very pleased we have 17 vendors here this year about 23 tables set up at the taste of chocolate and as you can see the lines are out the window up to the block again and we're just real winged big. Oh it's fantastic lots of really fun and exciting vendors. And I have with me one of the Valentine's. Could you tell us what the Valentine is all about? Every year, the Prince of Fairfax, who sponsored the chocolate lover, or I'm sorry, the taste of chocolate, do a collectible Valentine. These Valentine's are $5 in advance, or $7 at the door. They have always been of another historical building in the city. This year we honored the Ford House. They're done by a local artist, Jackie Lydell, who's a member of our committee. And what happens is this isn't on here, because obviously Rachel's already bought her chocolate. There would be a coupon on the back here that's good for five free Pogs, and then you get to keep the Valentine is a collector's item. So it's another way to put a little bit of money back into the community. And we have people that clamor for these every year. Great. Now each year there is a group that will benefit from the Chocolate Lovers Festival. Can you tell us who that group is this year? Sure. This year the overall recipient of the proceeds from the Chocolate Lovers Committee will be our daily bread. So I think last year we gave the organization like $2,500 and we hope to do that and and more again this year. So you can see it's a beautiful day. It's in the 50s and they're all out here to buy chocolate. Great. Well, thank you Beverly and we're going to get back to the festival. We love chocolate. We love chocolate! Here, this is like a third year in a row that we've come to. We've talked with Loves and Specials, so it's great. It's a great day, great opportunity to be out here. There's a lot of fun and those that love chocolate, this is the place to be. So we thank the city staff for all the support to make these events possible and we look forward to another successful year I'm a big fan of the chocolate pretzels and those have been very good so far and my one friend got a chocolate covered crispy treat I never had that before so that looks pretty good too. Well, I'm not strawberries from the chocolate fountain and the dipped in hard chocolate and then like and the tips in hard chocolate and then like milk chocolate which is like hot bites it is really good. I like that mid chocolate tip but we've had a kind of an of a fat chocolate over there with marshmallows and scrub berries and fresh crispy treats. Cheating a lot. Okay, you want two, three, four, five. Thank you very much for your time. I'll enjoy yourself. Oh, I will. I'll enjoy. And for a mere $1, you can get a hog. And with that money, you can go around to the different vendors. And they tell you whether it's one, two, three, four, a hog for a treat. So this is the money you need here at the Chocolate Lovers Festival, 2008. If you wanna eat, you gotta get your pugs. Gotta get your pugs. Great, well this has been a fabulous event but we're ready to head over to the library for our next event and just real quick I wanted to get your impression of last weekend's opening of the City of Fairfax Regional Library. It was a dream come true for a lot of people on a lot of different levels. We've kind of struggled long for many years with a building that really had seen better days. And now we have this beautiful state of the art facility that is going to service for many, many years. I'd like to see the world and burn it, it's just as long for apple trees and honey bees That was the sweet sounds of the sweet Adalaians singing in the rotunda of the new City of Fairfax Regional Library. Here to tell us more about the library is Branch Manager Tina Cunningham. Hi Tina, how are you doing today? Fine Rachel, thank you for coming by today. Yes, we're hosting the Quartet Out of the Sweet Adalines today as part of the Chocolate Lovers Festival because of our big grand opening festivities last weekend, we are not taking as big a part in the festival this year as we normally do. Next year, though, we'll be back on track with children's programs, performers, and all sorts of chocolate-related activities. The public response has just been overwhelming and, of course, staff are delighted to have this bright and airy place to work. Great. thank you, Tina. It really is a wonderful facility. And here are some highlights now from the grand opening on January 26th. We turn the corner and the parade of walking all the books. You know, the sense of pride, looking at the community, looking at the building, it really is what a small town is all about and how proud can we be on a library that really is the state of the art and the regional system. It's amazing to me. You know, when I first got elected to the City Council in 1990, the Internet was just but a dream and certain people's eyes. And when you look behind me here and see all of these computer workstations and the fact that people from all walks of life can come in here and use the Internet, what a great resource for the community. And again, this is just something that's available thanks to the great partnership that we forged with Fairfax County. And I just think that I hope our citizens take advantage of it. Oh it's a great opportunity for the citizens of the City of Fairfax, a wonderful building, wonderful facility that we're going to have. It's just going to be really the crown jewel in the downtown area of the city of Fairfax and people for many many years to come will be able to take advantage of this wonderful building. It's very functional. We had a very busy library but one that was not well planned and did not allow for growth. Here we have a facility that just is going to draw, we think, so many people in a comfortable way. They look like our partnership. I did a wonderful job. They had designed the buildings in Alexandria and Arlington that have Virginia Roads. And I think that's very significant as we have a Virginia Roam that's three times the size of the old one. The architecture that fits in, it's a modern building, but it blends in with old town fairfacts. And Luke Markhart, your ship, just did a fabulous job. The acoustics in this building are phenomenal. When you were in the vaults of ceiling, it's almost as if the sound is drawn out. And so the children's area, it's noisy over there, but it's, you know, to be a little bit. But when you go under the area where this Virginia room is, everything goes totally quiet. So you can come to this library and go into a very quiet space. The Virginia Room has been part of the library system since probably the late 40s. I have been told that there was a need for materials to enhance the school curriculum when they were studying Virginia history. And it started out as about two shelves of books in the old Cinder Black building behind the courthouse. It grew in the new building which opened in 1962 and it was I think a wall of shelves at that time. When I arrived here in 1981, the Virginia Room was in the basement of the building on Chain Bridge Road. When we renovated, we moved up to the third floor, and we had about 4,200 square feet in the old building. We now have 14,000 square feet for the Virginia Room with lots of space to keep the rare materials, the photographs, and for people to work and do research. We have a climate control, a rare book room, two whole manuscripts, the photographs, and the rare books. And we also have developed a really strong genealogical collection, and because the residents of northern Virginia come from so many places they're not just interested in materials on Virginia research. We have materials for people from New England, the Middle West, the far west. We have information to help you trace your roots back to the country of origin that your family came from. Over here we have a children's section now that has a lot of light. You can sit in front of the windows and read your book and look out the windows. We have many new books for the children here in the city of Fairfax and what a cornerstone for the children to grow up with this brand new library. We really like the so-called house that we actually walk here for a long time. So we're very excited. Water was collecting on the flat roof and somebody one day just put a rubber duck out to float on one of the large deep puddles on the roof and more ducks came in its place and people who could come up the stairs and look out the window and see the ducks on the roof but isn't this neat and people would bring various ducks from trips around the country. You have Lincoln and Blue the Bee and Doug from the Shakespeare Theatre. Somebody brought an Ohio duck back that they picked up on the Ohio Turnpike. And it just grew into all kinds of ducks. We have basketball ducks and baseball ducks and soccer ducks. And we put a lot of them out on the roof to float around. And it became a real focal point for the children in the community. They love to climb the stairs and look out the window and see the ducks floating on the roof. So we decided the ducks had become such a popular part of our kind of folklore. Then the ducks had to have a whole building and so the parade this morning brought the duck decorated carts and ducks over from the old doling to the new and we have down in display case a large display and so a duck is going to be the symbol of the new city of Fairfax Regional Library. I just love a good courtroom drama. Let's head over to the courthouse for the chocolate capper. I dropped out next to me and didn't need her no longer in. At the time, I got to the point where I did it to do something drastic. And killed in all the cities we've been lost to the fair. So when it became clear, we now can't let each other be better, just like the world. And Ms. Muckensay, anything else about these things? Yes, she did. She stated that she had been having nightmares and had been unable to sleep except for the virus. Now, was the warning about the virus? Part of that side, that then? It was. The side has not changed really words since I was about to work with it. We generally decide if you're burning or must be unanimous, you must call the green one way or the other. I think that was not good to get paid from the hospital bills, but not for the time. Alright, so they agreed to award this not for hospitalization bills, but they decided not to award for the payments for the time. And we're going to try to introduce some of the concepts of a jury trial and the two signs where each side has to tell their side of the story have an introduction of evidence, have some other witnesses testify and then come up with a verdict. On the grounds of the Fairfax Courthouse is the Legato School. Let's go inside. And this school is a museum school and it was originally an actual Fairfax County Public School from 1870 until 1930. It's a one-room school and it met the needs of children in Western Fairfax County. It was originally on the location of the present a fair oak small. And I've noticed we've got a special lesson on the board today. It's a tells about that. Yes, yes. This is part of the chocolate lovers festival. So we have actually the history of chocolate on the board there. And it's several statements about the fact that chocolate is really very good for you. It makes you feel good physically as well as mentally and emotionally. So we're very happy to participate in this event. Welcome to the Radcliffe Allison House, the oldest house left standing in the original city of Fairfax. The city was constructed around the county courthouse in 1805 and the original part of this house was built in 1812 with additions in the 1820s and the 1920s so we love to have people come in to look at the oldest house in town after they've had their chocolate of course and enjoy a little history right here for us. This year's Taste of Chocolate Valentine featured the four building. Let's go inside to hear about this building's history. This is a very very historical home where a young lady by the name of Antonio Ford lived. She met a gentleman that was from the north. His name was Joseph Willard, which was one of the brothers that owned the Willard hotel in Washington, DC. They met, they got married. Unfortunately, she was a spy for the south. So some of the northerners found out about it and her husband couldn't do anything so she had to go to prison for a few years. Alright well this is the Fairfax Museum and Vizvers Center and we're open every day but today for Chocolate Lovers Festival we've been happy to have some special activities today this afternoon we had children's crafts going on, covering a lot of different topics, historic Valentine making, Groundhog's Day, it is Groundhog's Day today, African American history and also President's Day history. So, having a lot of fun with the kids doing different crafts and activities. New to the Chapa Lover Festival is an event hosted by the Fairfax Army Odoms Group. The chapter which is made up of about 775 members here in Fairfax, Virginia, is going to host a poker run. We're going to call it the road candy poker run. Try to tie in the Chocolate Lover's Festival into that and really this whole event is in cooperation with the Chocolate Lover's Festival. We're going to start out here, Patriot, on the 19th of April, probably around 10 o'clock in the morning. We'll visit four places in northern Virginia that handle confections or chocolate or basically sweets. So everybody should have a good time with that. We hope you've enjoyed this edition of the Fairfax scene. Be sure to tune in next month when we bring you a tour of the renovated city hall and the new city hall annex. For the Fairfax scene, I'm Rachel Roth and we little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. 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