By the time you wake up on Friday morning, temperatures will be in the low teens, and the highs forecast for Friday aren’t expected to reach 20.
The forecast calls for sub-freezing temperatures through Christmas, and the Cobb County Water System has issued an alert on how to prevent your pipes from freezing or bursting during the cold snap of weather.
First, you’re advised to let faucets drip “because moving water freezes less quickly than standing water.”
You can save water by placing a container in a sink, tub or shower or wherever faucets are dripping, and use the water for plants or other purposes:
“The water does not need to be a warm temperature for this to work. The idea behind this method is not to melt already-frozen ice but to stop the water from freezing in the first place. And because the cold and hot water in your house is likely separated, it’s the cold water plumbing you need to worry about.”
Other preventative measures keeping kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors open to let warmer air circulate around the plumbing.
Also, keep your thermostat set to the same temperature during the day and at night. You may get a higher heating bill, “but you can prevent a much more costly repair job if pipes freeze and burst.”
If you’re leaving home during the cold weather, leave the heat on at home to a temperature no lower than 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
Before the onset of cold weather, protect pipes that are outdoor or exposed from freezing by following these recommendations:
For outdoor pipes, drain water from swimming pool and water sprinkler supply lines.
Remove, drain, and store hoses used outdoors. Close inside valves supplying outdoor hose bibs. Open the outside hose bibs to allow water to drain.
Add insulation to attics, basements and crawl spaces. Insulation will maintain higher temperatures in these areas.
Also check around the house for other areas where water supply lines are located in unheated areas, including the garage and under kitchen and bathroom cabinets.
To thaw out frozen pipes, consider the following:
“If you turn on a faucet and only a trickle comes out, suspect a frozen pipe. Likely places for frozen pipes include against exterior walls or where your water service enters your home through the foundation. Keep the faucet open. As you treat the frozen pipe and the frozen area begins to melt, water will begin to flow through the frozen area. Running water through the pipe will help melt ice in the pipe.
“Apply heat to the section of pipe using an electric heating pad wrapped around the pipe, an electric hair dryer, a portable space heater (kept away from flammable materials), or by wrapping pipes with towels soaked in hot water. Do not use a blowtorch, kerosene or propane heater, charcoal stove, or other open flame device.
“Apply heat until full water pressure is restored. If you are unable to locate the frozen area, if the frozen area is not accessible, or if you cannot thaw the pipe, call a licensed plumber.
“Check all other faucets in your home to find out if you have additional frozen pipes. If one pipe freezes, others may freeze, too.”
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East Cobb resident Suzanne Tucker has been named the new executive director of the Georgia Symphony Orchestra.
A former public school music teacher, Tucker also has 18 years of leadership experience in church music, including as director of music at Mt. Bethel UMC.
She will assume her new role on Jan. 9, 2023, according to a GSO release.
“I am thrilled to become a part of the Georgia Symphony Orchestra family,” she said in the release. “I strongly believe in the creative vision of this organization. I am convinced that music is a powerful tool for fostering connection, and this connection is sorely missing in our world today.”
The GSO, based in Marietta, is a 71-year-old community music organization that conducts year-round musical events, including educational opportunities for youths, and more than 500 professional musicians and students currently performing in its ranks.
GSO includes a full orchestra, as well as choral and jazz ensembles. Its young musician training program, founded in 2006, includes five orchestras, a jazz ensemble, a percussion ensemble, instrumental chamber ensembles, and a youth chorus for school-age children who are chosen through competitive auditions.
Tucker holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from Shorter College and master’s degree in music education from the University of Georgia. She and her husband Jeffrey have two sons, Jackson and Will.
Michael Knowles, a senior relationship manager with Fifth Third Bank, has been named the chairman of the GSO board.
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What was a wind chill watch for much of north Georgia over the Christmas weekend has turned into a warning.
The National Weather Service has upgraded its advisory to take effect from Thursday night through Saturday, Christmas Eve, as the coldest temperatures in metro Atlanta in several years will be moving in.
Wind chills as low as -5 below zero are forecast during the warning period, which expires at noon Saturday.
While highs Wednesday and Thursday will be around 50, very cold weather will arrive on Friday, with highs only in the low 20s for Friday and Saturday.
There’s a 40 percent chance of rain Thursday with lows in the mid-teens.
The NWS is urging individuals to limit their outdoor time, wear gloves/mittens and tight-fitting hats or caps and dress in layers. Outdoor pets should be brought inside.
Lows on Friday night could dip into the single digits. By Christmas Day, the rain will be clearing out with sunny skies expected but a high forecast only in the low 30s.
The cold weather moving through Georgia and the Deep South is part of a Arctic cold front sweeping across the continental United States, with wind chill factors of -40 and -50 below zero in parts of the northern Great Plains.
Snow squalls are forecast in the western U.S. and even California and Florida will be experiencing freezing weather.
Flash freezing could occur over much of the eastern U.S., including parts of Georgia and the South, before the weather system moves out across the Atlantic Ocean.
Temperatures in metro Atlanta will get gradually warmer early next week, with highs in the mid-40s on Tuesday and into the low 60s by next Friday.
For more on the local weather forecast over the next week, click here.
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Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The following food scores for the week of Dec. 19 have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing for inspection details:
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Homes or a place for stuff that doesn’t fit homes? A proposed self-storage facility on Terrell Mill Road would look residential—on the outside.
A proposal to turn one of the older homesteads in the Powers Ferry Road corridor into a self-storage facility was put on hold Tuesday by the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
A rezoning request by ADP Terrell Mill on two parcels of land on Terrell Mill Road at Delk Road was opposed by some nearby residents and recommended for denial by the Cobb Zoning Staff, despite the applicant’s many changes and negotiations with the community.
They included architectural design changes to make the exterior of the proposed 40,000-square foot building look residential. The facility would be built by Shamrock Building Systems, a prominent self-storage builder in the Atlanta area.
“It looks and feels much more residential, and fits in with the neighborhood,” said zoning attorney Kevin Moore, who represents the applicant.
Kevin Nicholas, who lives in the nearby Amberley Place subdivision, wasn’t buying it.
“We don’t need another self-storage facility in this area,” said Nicholas, who ran for Cobb commissioner in 2020 and also served on the Development Authority of Cobb County. “It’s not a commercial tract. It’s a residential tract.”
There’s a self-storage building at the new MarketPlace Terrell mixed-use development and further down Powers Ferry near Windy Ridge Parkway.
The 2.55 acres at the intersection of Terrell Mill and Delk are zoned R-80, the lowest-density of single-family zoning categories in the Cobb code.
Each of the two tracts have had single-family homes dating from before the area became heavily surburbanized. Nearby residential zoning ranges from R-20 to RA-6—there’s an adjacent townhome community—but the property owned by the late Ruby Inez Fridell is designated as very low density residential (VLDR) on the Cobb future land use map.
“That just doesn’t match to me,” Commissioner JoAnn Birrell said, noting that most of the e-mails she’s received are opposed to the rezoning.
Cobb zoning division manager John Pederson told her that’s the last R-80 land in that area of East Cobb.
Nicholas and several commissioners suggested either other commercial uses—such as a coffee shop—or residential.
But Moore said residential development there is not “economically viable. It’s too small of a property.”
Commission chairwoman Lisa Cupid noted that citizens rarely speak in favor of self-storage facilities.
“Maybe there are pigs flying outside,” she said. “It’s a beautiful building” but she suggested that other commercial uses “may be more neighborhood-oriented.”
Commissioner Jerica Richardson of District 2 made a motion to hold the case to February, when zoning cases are next heard.
“There may be a way to satisfy the community on that side and honor the work that’s been done” by the applicant,” she said.
Walgreens will be leaving the location at 3033 Johnson Ferry Road at Waterfront Drive.
Richardson also moved to hold another case in her district, a site-plan change involving a Walgreens store in the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
David Weinstein, an attorney representing Mid-Atlantic Commercial Properties, LLC, said his client is seeking a change from a single-use only designation for 1.28 acres at 3033 Johnson Ferry Road.
He said Walgreens will be vacating that facility, and his client wants to have some more flexibility within the neighborhood retail commercial (NRC) category.
In rezoning the land in 2000, Cobb commissioners limited that use to a pharmacy or drug store only. Other uses proposed by Mid-Atlantic Commercial Properties could be for a banks or medical office, as well as restaurant space.
The existing building could remain standing and be converted, or a new facility could be constructed, Weinstein said, adding that his client may purchase two adjoining parcels on Johnson Ferry to enable a deceleration lane.
He mentioned a fast-casual concept with a drive-thru as a possibility, but the East Cobb Civic Association is opposed to that use.
ECCA president Richard Grome said there are traffic, noise and compatibility issues with the request. The Walgreens sits at the intersection of Johnson Ferry and Waterfront Drive, adjacent to planned townhomes that were part of the East Cobb Church rezoning in 2021.
“There’s going to be light pollution for those townhouses,” Grome said.
Rachel Bruce, a member of the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford (JOSH) advisory committee created by Richardson, said she hadn’t heard from the applicant and worried that residents in the area would have one less place to get prescription drugs.
“Walgreens is leaving. We don’t have any control over that,” Weinstein said.
Cobb DOT said the Walgreens property doesn’t have enough right-of-way for a deceleration lane, and if a restaurant were to built there, access via Johnson Ferry should be removed.
Commissioner Keli Gambrill said she understood why her predecessors limited what could go on that land.
“Based on DOT, there’s not room for deceleration,” she said. “I agree with not having a restaurant there.”
Richardson’s motion includes provisions for JOSH committee input and the submission of a site plan and architectural plans when the case comes back before commissioners.
A proposal for a King’s Hawaiian restaurant in Northeast Cobb, which has been delayed before, also is being pushed back to February.
Birrell said she received a new stipulation letter from an attorney for Stein Investment Group on Tuesday.
The applicant wants to add the restaurant on former GTC Cobb Park 12 Cinema property on Gordy Parkway and Shallowford Road that rezoned last year for a self-storage facility.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Rabbi Ephraim Silverman of the Chabad of Cobb leads the Menorah lighting festivities.
The eight days of Hanukkah are underway, with Menorah lighting events taking place in East Cobb and elsewhere on Sunday and also this week.
At The Avenue East Cobb, the Chabad of Cobb congregation teamed up with the retail center and the firefighters from Station 21 on Lower Roswell Road—located next to the synagogue—to conduct the annual chocolate gelt drop from high atop the engine ladder (video below).
Chocolate gelt coins wrapped in foil are a Hanukkah tradition, a gift to children who rushed in a mad scramble to scoop up all the treats they could (we got a little close to the action and took one on the forehead but can report the chocolate was delicious.)
A Menorah lighting also took place Sunday at East Cobb Park, led by Congregation Etz Chaim.
Rabbi Ephraim Silverman engaged with children on the stage in a teaching moment for young people to learn about the joy, hope and peace of the Hanukkah celebration, also known as the Festival of Lights.
Hanukkah commemorates the second-century (B.C.) rededication of the second temple of Jerusalem, where according to legend Jews rose up against their Greek-Syrian oppressors in the Maccabean Revolt.
The temple included a menorah with a candlabrum with nine branches. On Sunday, the candle placed above the others, the shammish, was lit at The Avenue Menorah, with the remaining eight to be lit individually through the final day of Hanukkah on Dec. 26.
Before the lighting began, a cantor sung blessings, and the youth-focused event included a magic show. Hanukkah also includes the playing and singing of Hanukkah songs, the playing of the dreidel, eating such foods as latkes and sufganiyot.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
We do this at this time each year, and are putting out out the call out once again:
Christmas is a week away, and many neighborhoods and homes in East Cobb have been lit up and adorned with home holiday decorations for a few weeks now.
We noticed a few while out and about, and would like to invite you to show off your displays and share your holiday cheer with the community.
The photos can be indoors or outdoors, daytime or evening, and even your Christmas tree, family members, pets, bad sweaters, etc.
E-mail your photos (JPG, JPEG, PNG files are ideal), family name and neighborhood if you’d like to editor@eastcobbnews.com and we’ll include them in a compilation later in the week.
You can also send links to videos that you’ve posted on YouTube or other platforms, but we cannot upload, edit or process raw videos.
On Friday we went out to take a look at the Fox Family Christmas Display we’ve posted about before, in the Clary Lakes subdivision in Northeast Cobb.
That goes on nightly from 7-11 p.m. at 2994 Clary Hill Court.
Check out the video below for that, and please do share with us how you’re celebrating so we can share that with the community. This goes for Christmas and also for Hanukkah, which begins on Sunday.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
We noted earlier this month that rezoning requests for a Northeast Cobb Lidl grocery store and an expanded Starbucks at Paper Mill Village won’t be heard until February at the earliest.
But there are a couple of other development cases of interest in the East Cobb area that will be heard Tuesday by the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
Both are proposed revisions to stipulations for existing zoning categories.
One of them would permit a King’s Hawaiian fast-casual restaurant at the site of the former GTC Cobb Park 12 Cinema on Gordy Parkway at Shallowford Road (staff filing and renderings here).
That request by Stein Investment Group comes a year after the applicant got rezoning to convert the movie theater into a self-storage facility.
The current request would use a portion of that land for a 3,200-square-foot restaurant with 29 parking spaces. Since it’s a site plan amendment and not a full rezoning case, the application didn’t have to go before the Cobb Planning Commission.
The Cobb zoning staff didn’t make any comments on the site plan review, but Cobb DOT is recommending that the access points should be on Gordy Parkway on a right-in, left-out and right-out basis due to its proximity to Shallowford Road.
Another item on the Other Business agenda includes a revision in stipulations for the use of what’s a Walgreen’s pharmacy at 3033 Johnson Ferry Road.
That’s at the intersection of Johnson Ferry and Waterfront Drive, what will be the main access point for a residential area of a mixed-use development approved last year and that will include the East Cobb Church.
Mid-Atlantic Commercial Properties wants to change a stipulation in the neighborhood retail commercial (NRC) category that limits usage of the 1.28-acre tract for a pharmacy or drug store only.
The proposed future uses of that land, according to the agenda filing (you can read it here) would “include but not be limited to drug store/pharmacy, banking, restaurant, medical use.”
The property was zoned NRC in 2000 and is located on one of several outparcels on Johnson Ferry that were not part of the East Cobb Church (Northpoint Ministries) rezoning case.
Another is the adjacent Take 5 oil change business and unoccupied tracts located in a flood plain.
The full agenda for Tuesday’s zoning hearing can be found by clicking here. The meeting starts at 9 a.m. in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
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Two Home Depot locations in East Cobb as well as Fullers Park are once again serving as Christmas tree dropoff sites for Keep Cobb Beautiful’s “Bring One for the Chipper” recycling drive.
The Home Depot stores at Providence Square (4101 Roswell Road) and Highland Plaza (3606 Sandy Plains Road) will be accepting discarded trees daily through Jan. 7, as will Fullers Park (3499 Robinson Road).
Trees must have all ornaments, lights, stands and other adornments removed before being dropped off. Wreaths, garlands and other items will not be accepted. Flocked trees also will not be accepted.
Keep Cobb Beautiful turns the discarded trees into mulch for beautification projects, soil erosion prevention, lakes, pond and water retention efforts throughout Cobb County.
The flyer below has further dates, addresses and information about the recycling drive, including saplings being available at select Home Depot locations on the final day, Jan. 7.
For more information, and to request mulch, click here.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The following food scores for the week of Dec. 12 have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing for inspection details:
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
From our calendar listings, and amid the many Christmas festivities that are ongoing, comes the start of eight days of Hanukkah.
There will be two community Menorah lightings taking place in East Cobb on Sunday, at the same time.
Congregation Etz Chaim is holding a community Hanukkah party from 2-4 at the synagogue (1190 Indian Hills Parkway) before the Menorah lighting that starts at 5 p.m. at East Cobb Park (3322 Roswell Road).
Both events are free and are open to the community. The “Winter Wonderland” party, also put on by Temple Kol Emeth, Temple Beth Tikvah and Temple Kellihat Chaim, will include treats, crafts, and more and you’re asked to sign up here.
Chabad of Cobb and The Avenue East Cobb are teaming up for another Menorah lighting starting at 5:30 p.m. at the retail center (4475 Roswell Road) with family-friendly activities and treats, and the chocolate Gelt drop, courtesy of the Cobb County Fire Department.
The event is free and is located in the front parking lot near Tin Lizzy’s, away from the construction fencing.
After a soggy week of rain, Sunday’s weather will be clear, but cold, with high temperatures in the mid 40s. So bundle up.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Marietta Police said license-plate reader technology helped identify the suspect of a kidnapping and carjacking last week at a grocery store in the Delk-Powers Ferry area of East Cobb.
Randy Harmon, 34, of Meadowlawn Lane off Powers Ferry Road, was arrested Dec. 6 after police said he used a gun to force a woman into her vehicle shortly after 9 a.m. that day at the Kroger at 1120 Powers Ferry Road after she had been shopping there.
According to an arrest warrant, Harmon pushed Tomeka Harris into the front passenger seat of her Nissan Sentra. She fought him for the gun as he tried to speed away from the Kroger, driving her car.
The warrant said that Harris then managed to open the passenger door and was thrown from the car, suffering injuries to both of her knees.
Police began searching for the stolen vehicle, and Cobb officers later found the Sentra parked in a subdivision with Harris’ belongings still inside, according to a statement Wednesday issued by Marietta Police.
(The Kroger, which will be replaced by a Kroger Superstore at the MarketPlace at Terrell Mill center, is located in Marietta city limits.)
A few hours later on Dec. 6, at around 2:30 p.m., Cobb officers found another stolen vehicle in the Cumberland Mall area and arrested the driver, identified as Harmon, for possession of a stolen vehicle and other traffic offenses, according to a separate warrant.
According to his booking report at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center, Harmon was arrested at 3101 Cobb Parkway SE. The arrest warrant said the vehicle he was driving, a 2016 Hyundai Accent, was the same vehicle he drove to the Kroger store that morning.
He has been charged with kidnapping, hijacking a motor vehicle, aggravated assault and for firearms violations, as well as for driving without a license or insurance.
Harmon also is facing charges of receiving stolen property, financial transaction card theft and failure to appear in court.
He is being held without bond, according to the booking report.
Marietta Police Chief Martin Ferrell praised Harris “for her determination, courage, and resilience in the face of danger” and said he was grateful she’s safe and that her property was recovered.
“The interagency collaboration as well as investment the city and surrounding jurisdictions have made in LPR cameras definitely aided in our ability to hold this criminal accountable!” he said.
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Over the protests of some citizens, the Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved a contract for Cobb Police to use facial recognition technology for criminal investigations.
The department has been part of a complimentary pilot program with Clearview AI, one of the leading facial recognition platforms. The three-year contract comes with a cost of $17,995 a year.
During a lengthy and often impassioned presentation, Cobb Police Chief Stuart VanHoozer said the Clearview algorithm is ranked the best in the industry, and that he and his staff have been meeting with commissioners and members of the community to develop a draft policy to guide how the technology will be used.
VanHoozer repeatedly defended Clearview AI, which is used by more than 3,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide.
The platform uses artificial intelligence to find online photos from publicly available sources to find matches of criminal suspects. VanHoozer said the Cobb Police policy for using Clearview AI has taken long to develop due to concerns about how it might be used.
“There are some large misconceptions about this product and our intent,” VanHoozer said during the presentation (you can watch it in its entirety below). “I’d be happy to speak with those have been speaking up on this subject” because some of the information, he added “is inaccurate.”
One of the citizens opposed to the contract is Robin Moody of East Cobb, who mentioned during a public comment period before VanHoozer’s presentation the fines and other penalties racked up by Clearview AI for privacy rights violations in Europe, including collecting images of the faces of people without their consent.
She also said that AI hasn’t eased concerns about racial profiling.
Another citizen, during the same public comment period, said that “I don’t give you permission to use my face.”
VanHoozer said Cobb will not use Clearview AI to scan people in crowds or at public gatherings, and use of the technology will be limited to authorized investigators who must log in and provide a case number.
He said Clearview AI is just another tool to help police investigate possible suspects in crimes, and nothing more.
“Emerging technology often collides with privacy concerns,” he said. “Sometimes it takes some time to work those things out.”
But the value of the technology to Cobb Police during the pilot program has been invaluable, he said.
The Clearview AI tool helped police identify a cold-case homicide suspect and also identified the ringleader of a violent home invasion that included children being kidnapped, among other investigations.
VanHoozer said that his department governs itself with an “even stricter policy” so that citizen concerns “are strongly mitigated.”
He said Clearview AI does not do broad public surveillance, such as at public meetings and sporting events, nor does it take footage from doorbell cameras and streetlights.
“What this product does for the most part is take a photograph of a known offender and compare that to a database that has images that are legally obtained and publicly available so that we can identify that individual,” VanHoozer said.
He said the effort to craft the policy and to educate the public about how Clearview AI will be used has been complicated by what he said is information that’s “consistently” being reported incorrectly in the news media.
“We get that nobody wants to live in a police state, including me,” he said. “We would not ever do the things that have been alleged here today. I feel strongly that this is the right thing to do.”
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A good bit has been made of Walton High School sports teams that had to compete off-campus when a new classroom building was being constructed.
Another extracurricular organization, the Walton Robotics Team, also had to conduct its activities elsewhere due to the same construction project.
After being located at East Cobb Middle School during that time, the team is now back on campus, in a separate building in the back parking lot that was a practice gym.
A new $307,000 robotics lab recently opened at Walton, approved last year by the Cobb Board of Education with funding from the Cobb Education SPLOST V.
Cobb County School District and Walton officials and dignitaries, including longtime former Principal Judy McNeill, were on hand for a ribbon-cutting and demonstration from Robotics Team members.
One of the hallmarks of the Walton Robotics program is community outreach, as team members visit with students from Title I schools such as Powers Ferry Elementary, and also with students at Eastvalley and Timber Ridge elementary schools.
“We’re not just about building a robot,” said Anish Saknuratri, a Walton Robotics team member who dedicates about 50 hours per week to the team, according to a release from the Cobb school district. “We also like to tell our team story, saying, ‘we built this robot. Yes, it’s amazing. We’re a championship robot, but we also give back to our community, and that’s what’s more important to us.’”
Last summer the team played host to a summer robotics camp for Cobb elementary and middle school students, and they’ve mentored robotics students at Dickerson and Dodgen middle schools.
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Zac Adkins, second from left, with Wheeler students on a “One Percent Harder” day at the school.
A Wheeler High School graduate who started a club at the school to address the health issues of his fellow teams is expanding his cause.
Zac Adkins played varsity football and soccer for the Wildcats and earned 3.944 grade-point honors.
Now a student at Berry College, Adkins last year launched One Percent Harder, a merchandise business that’s meant to encourage young people to fostering open communication about mental and physical health among teens.
He started wearing his merchandise to school and shared his story with students, athletes and his church youth group. On Wednesdays, some Wheeler students got into the habit of wearing One Percent Gear to school, and the school’s highly ranked boys basketball team donned the outfits while warming up during a state playoff game.
The club was suggested by Wheeler principal Paul Gillihan, and it’s an accountability group that discusses a specific topic and challenges participants to set goals and “work one percent harder each day to achieve them.”
Currently One Percent Harder is raising funds for a professional mental health counseling at Wheeler, with an initial goal of $50,000.
Adkins is donating 10 percent of his merchandise proceeds to the fund, which will go to providing counseling services to any Wheeler student who needs one.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
During the holiday season, East Cobb News contributor Tamar Levy has offered up some of her ideas for shopping small to support local businesses and family-oriented activities at home and out in the community.
In her final installment, she’s got some ideas to help parents as the holiday season turns into a new year. As the mother of two small children herself, she writes from experience as she engages them in early learning activities.
As we close out 2022 and look ahead to 2023, East Cobb News will be adding more freelancers to help us cover more of the news you’ve come to expect from our community’s only all-online news and business promotion outlet.
By Tamar Levy
As we approach 2023, parents begin to reflect on the past year and start to make goals for the upcoming year for their families. Maybe that’s to go on a family vacation, spend more quality time together, or even start to think about how they can support their child’s learning at home.
If you’re a parent and you’re thinking about the latter, I am here to give you some ideas. As a former teacher and reading specialist and a mom of two, I believe there are always ways (even small!) to support your child’s learning at home.
If you don’t have a library card already, now is the time to get one. The East Cobb Library has a wonderful children’s section and is the perfect place for your family to discover new titles. It is a way to encourage independent reading and to spark new interest for books at home. They also offer various story times and activities for your family to enjoy.
Connect your child’s interest with learning at home. For example, does your child like the TV show, Paw Patrol? Use your Paw Patrol toys at home to practice the beginning sounds of letters. Or hide the toys around the house and encourage your child to count them as he or she finds them. Learning and play can go hand in hand, and you can use what you have in your home to support that.
When purchasing alphabet materials, make sure they practice the letter sounds and not just the letters. There are several puzzles that have pictures of the letter sounds when matching the letters. These are a great fit for a child learning or practicing letter sounds.
Place books everywhere. Reading isn’t just for bedtime. It can be for the car ride to school, the bathroom, getting cozy on the couch, or you can even create a reading corner for your child at home.
Use educational experts as a resource. Ask your child’s teacher how you can support your child’s learning at home. There are also several experts online that share activity ideas to support your child’s development as well.
If you have Instagram, my own platform can support your family daily. Check out @that_peachmommy for more ways to support your young learner at home. Navigating parenthood is challenging and I am here to help you with that.
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A second location of Fire Stone Chinese Cuisine—which debuted to acclaim in the Town Center area in 2019—is set to open in East Cobb early 2023.
That’s the response we got after inquiring about the new restaurant’s timeline. Fire Stone will occupy the former Black Swan Tavern space—and for many years before that, Churchill’s Pub—at Merchants Festival (1401 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 128).
Last week Fire Stone received an alcohol pouring license from Cobb County government, but restaurant’s response didn’t provide any further details.
Fire Stone was started by Wen-Qiang Huang, a former associate of Peter Chang of Tasty China II fame, and specializes in Sichuan dishes (menu here).
The new Fire Stone space has been vacant since the Black Swan closed in February 2020. Another vacant restaurant space at Merchants Festival, formerly Jason’s Deli, still retains that restaurant’s outside signage.
The former Pier 1 store that also closed in 2020 at Merchants Festival is now occupied by Sea of Pearls Dentistry.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The Credit Union of Georgia, which has a branch office in East Cobb, is collecting items for pet supply drive for the holidays to benefit Mostly Mutts Animal Rescue.
The drive lasts through Dec. 19 at 5 p.m. and items can be dropped off at any branch (there’s one at 1020 Johnson Ferry Road).
There are wish lists posted at MostlyMutts.org, Amazon.com, and Chewy.com, and needed items include dog blankets, cat litter, dog treats, cat scratchers and gift cards to Petco, PetSmart, and Amazon.
“We can’t forget about our four-legged friends during the holiday season. Help us help our local animal rescue. All the items that are collected will be dropped off at Mostly Mutts Animal Rescue for our friends at the animal shelter.” said Brian Albrecht, President/CEO of Credit Union of Georgia.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
