Tired of underpaid jobs and inconvenient hours, three entrepreneurial McLean teens decided to start their own company.

Their new company, TeenServ, aims to solve teenage unemployment with a platform that matches students and community members who need short-term assistance with various tasks. Website users can pick-up shifts wherever and whenever they want, making it convenient for hectic schedules.

Around a year ago, Jack Lannin, Quin Frew and another McLean teen were walking home together from the local pool where they worked as lifeguards, upset that they received a significant pay cut when they came up with the idea for TeenServ.

Lannin told Tysons Reporter that pay change “almost cut their salary in half,” and they wanted to find another job but there were few options.

“Aside from getting a real job, reffing sports or yard work, there isn’t really a good way to make money,” Lannin said, adding that even becoming a referee requires a significant startup cost for teens — around $70 — to pay for training and a uniform.

They started out by going door-to-door and asking community members if they would pay teens fair wages for short-term yardwork. Soon enough, they began gathering opportunities.

“For teens, it’s really intimidating going door-to-door,” Lannin said. “But for us, it wasn’t a big deal.”

With help from an entrepreneurship class at McLean High School and feedback from peers, the students were able to turn their idea into a reality. Currently, they said they are learning as they go, thanks to guidance from their class and feedback from customers.

So far, the website has employed more than 200 teens, according to Lannin.

The third founder, whom Tysons Reporter wasn’t able to receive parental permission to publish their name, said one of his friends has made more than $1,500 so far by taking on random jobs and managed to build a rapport with homeowners who request him for all their upcoming tasks.

TeenServ pays students up to $18 per hour — well above Virginia’s minimum wage of $7.25.

The boys say the platform is mutually beneficial for community members and teens. The community members enjoy working with teens because it gives them an opportunity to interact with someone they otherwise wouldn’t, and teens feel like they are giving back to the community, they said.

If the customers are unsatisfied with the work, the three founders will come back to finish the job free of charge. The founders said they only had to take a customer up on this once or twice so far.

“For the future, we really want to start with McLean and expand as large as possible thought the area,” the third founder said.

Photo Courtesy TeenServ 

Construction on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail in the City of Falls Church is almost over.

The W&OD Trail closed at Grove Avenue and N. West Street starting Aug. 19 and is expected to open back up on Friday, Sept. 6, according to a tweet.

The closure brings a series of changes including the temporary rerouting of paths, paving paths that were previously gravel, widening paths, burying utilities, creating safer crossings and eventually realigning the path with the new Founders Row development, Mike DePue, a W&OD Trail spokesperson, said.

DePue said the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority is also in the design process to install dual paths that will ease congestion.

“The goal of dual surface trails is to separate bike traffic from pedestrian traffic to improve user safety and enjoyment of the trail,” he said.

Work continues on the temporary trail detour in Falls Church… pic.twitter.com/j5OprfwiRe

— The W&OD Trail (@WODTrail) August 28, 2019

Photo via The W&OD Trail/Twitter

A local sci-fi author recently teamed up with big names to expand his fictional world.

David McGoings is the creator of “Catharsis: 2066” and a Falls Church resident. He began the project as a book trilogy but decided to expand it into a multi-media project featuring Star Trek’s Robert Picardo and famous narrator Greg Tremblay.

“Catharsis: 2066” follows the lives of six characters interacting with aliens come to earth and change the world’s history forever. The storyline explores the characters’ feelings and struggles as they deal with a changing environment and the ripple effect of their actions.

“It’s about the breakdown of society and the interactions of the people,” McGoings said.

McGoings told Tysons Reporter that the first book is currently finished and is in the process of publication. Next, he wants to implement a video series and work on the last two books in the trilogy.

He isn’t sure when the first book will be released to the public. As a teaser, Tremblay and Picardo from “Star Trek: Voyager” agreed to narrate the first four chapters. There is also a trailer with artwork from Rob Joseph.

“It started out as just a pitch, but most people in the industry when putting their name on something or helping out with something, they have to like the product first,” said McGoings.

Within the first week of the narration’s release, he said he received more than 2,000 new social media followers and attention on several online forums encouraging art from people of color, including Planet Ebjon, a Facebook page dedicated to Marvel DC characters and the Entertainment Universe.

“It has motivated me as well as pushed the envelope a little on how far you can go when writing a book if you have the tenacity or drive to keep with it,” McGoings said.

Until this point, McGoings said all the proceeds for his book have come out of his pocket or from donations from friends and family. In hopes of reaching his $8,000 goal for the trilogy and a YouTube video series, McGoings started a GoFundMe where people can donate to support the project.

In the next few weeks, McGoings and Joseph will sponsor a social media contest for fans where people will have the change to enter for a piece of signed custom artwork. Fans can check out the book’s Facebook page for upcoming details.

Eventually, McGoings said he wants to write full-time and hire a literary agent, to help him market his books to publishers.

“It’s probably one of the hardest parts of the process, besides writing the book itself, is to find an agent,” McGoings said. “It’s hard to grab the attention of somebody.”

Images courtesy David McGoings

The Weekly Planner is a roundup of interesting events coming up over the next week in the Tysons area.

We’ve scoured the web for events of note in Tysons, Vienna, Merrifield, McLean and Falls Church. Know of any we’ve missed? Tell us!

Thursday (Sept. 5)

• Falls Church Art Show –11 a.m.-6 p.m. at Falls Church Arts (700 W. Broad Street) — Local artists showcase their latest work at this annual event.

Friday (Sept. 6)

• Old Firehouse Family Movie Night — 7-9 p.m. at The Old Firehouse (1440 Chain Bridge Road) — This event gives families the chance to gather and watch Disney’s “Frozen.” Tickets are $3 per person, which includes unlimited popcorn.
• The Piano Guys — 8 p.m. at Filene Center (1551 Trap Road) — The YouTube sensations will perform a live concert of their new album “Limitless.” Tickets are $38 and include a free download of the album.

Saturday (Sept. 7)

• Food For Others Tysons 5k and Fun Run — 8-10 a.m. at Tysons Corner Center Mall (1961 Chain Bridge Road) — This charity 5k invites participants to raise money for the hungry through Food for Others. Participants can purchase tickets for $35 beforehand and meet at the parking lot outside L.L.Bean on the day of the race.
• Coding Day for Beginners — 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at  WeWork Tysons Corner (1775 Tysons Blvd) — This free event offers participants an inside look into how HTML, CSS and JavaScript work. Participants are asked to bring a laptop but free coffee and lunch will be provided.

Sunday (Sept. 8)

• Wolf Trap National Park Garden Tour — 10 a.m.-noon at Wolf Trap (1551 Trap Road) — This free event allows guests to tour the park in coordination with the National Parks Service.
• Uniquely Virginia Festival — noon-4 p.m. at the McLean Community Center (1234 Ingleside Avenue) — This festival features products created in northern Virginia. Admission is free and there will be live music and sample tastings.

Photo via Wolf Trap

Labor Day is coming up on Monday (Sept. 2). For people staying in the Tysons area for the holiday weekend, some government facilities will be closed and public transit options will be operating on modified schedules.

Tysons Reporter has rounded up a list of public services that will be affected by the upcoming holiday.

County-wide

• All county offices, schools and libraries will be closed on Labor Day.
• The State Courts will be closed for the day.
• The Metrobus and Metrorail will adopt a Sunday schedule for Labor Day and resume typical service on Tuesday.
• The Fairfax Connector will operate on a Sunday schedule for Labor Day.
• Fairfax County Neighborhood and Community Services will be closed from Saturday (Aug. 31) until Monday (Sept. 2).
• United States Postal Service offices will be closed Labor Day.

Vienna

• The Vienna Community Center will have reduced hours on Labor Day from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
• The Town of Vienna’s government offices will be closed Labor Day.

McLean

• The McLean Community Center will be closed on Labor Day.

Falls Church

• The City of Falls Church’s government offices and buildings will be closed Labor Day.
• The City Council Work Session, originally scheduled for Monday, will be moved to Tuesday (Sept. 3) at 7:30 p.m. in the Community Center (223 Little Falls Street).
• The Mary Riley Styles Public Library will be closed on Sunday (Sept. 1) and Monday (Sept. 2).
• Falls Church Community Center will be closed for cleaning until Tuesday (Sept. 3).

Speaking of closed offices, Tysons Reporter will be on a break as well on Monday.

The Ice Cream Jubilee pop-up in Tysons Galleria is now closed.

The location closed its doors during the last week of July after serving customers since December 2018, according to Jenna Hahn, the vice president of operations for Ice Cream Jubilee.

“While we very much enjoyed getting to know the people of the area, we decided to focus on our permanent locations,” Hahn said.

Matthew Woods, the assistant manager of Jubilee’s Ballston spot, said the Tysons location was not meeting its sales goals.

“The foot traffic didn’t pick up during the summer as we expected it to,” Woods said, adding that sales were unusually low especially for the hot summer months.

Unlike the Tysons location, Ice Cream Jubilee in Ballston seems to be very popular according to Woods. He added that they still have a steady flow of customers despite the start of the new school year.

The future of 5G in Falls Church is unclear. 

The new service offers cell phone users faster speeds but is not yet available in the City of Falls Church.

Karen Jones is a member of the Falls Church Tree Commission who prepared a city plan for how to implement the new service. Though she began her research out of concerns for tree preservation, she said her research guided her down another concerning path. 

She found that in order to bring 5G services to the city, telecommunication companies would likely install transmitters  — roughly the size of a child’s backpack — on already existing infrastructure like telephone polls, streets or powerlines.

“They’re boxy, not attractive typically, and they will be put on streetlights and on the side of buildings,” she said.

The transmitters’ high frequency only reaches so far meaning they would need to be installed every 100 feet, Jones added.

She is urging the city to adopt a 5G policy since telecommunication companies could approach the city any day with a proposal.

According to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the city has 90 days to approve or reject a plan once the Federal Communications Commission proposes implementation.

If the City of Falls Church already has a plan, Jones said they will be able to have more control over the way 5G is implemented within city limits.

To ease the aesthetic burdens of 5G, Jones spoke with several companies that specialize in covert transmitters.

Ericsson, for example, makes products that allow contractors to hide 5G antennas in the wallpaper or under carpet, according to Jones. She also discussed solutions like hiding 5G antennas under specialized manhole covers.

“There is also a significant amount of research and prototyping on transparent conductive films,” Jones said.

Jones already presented her proposal to the Tree Commission and is going to educate City Council members on the topic in the coming weeks.

“There are mediation measures that need to be considered. They need to consider this now because the FCC has embarked on this unprecedented focus of building out 5G,” Jones said. 

Photo courtesy Karen Jones

The red oak trees in the City of Falls Church are dying — and no one knows why yet.

At a recent Falls Church Tree Commission meeting, members said they noticed sick trees on city property and are confused about what is threatening the red oak population. Members brought up a theory, saying that a disease called leaf scorch may be to blame.

Kate Reich, the city’s arborist, said that the red oaks are showing signs of browning leaves and dying branches — both common signs of leaf scorch.

Leaf scorch can affect all shade trees and commission members at the meeting said they were unsure why the disease is just affecting red oaks.

If leaf scorch is to blame though, “At least half of our native trees are susceptible,” a commissioner said at the meeting.

The Tree Commission is unsure how many trees are affected by the illness because they are unable to account for sick trees on private property. Reich said she wants homeowners to be aware of the issue so they can eventually take steps to save their trees.

The commission is waiting to see if their theory is confirmed from samples of the dying tree sent to Virginia Tech for laboratory testing. Reich said that once they know the root of the problem, they will decide on a course of action.

“We don’t normally control tree diseases. Focusing on just a few trees takes scarce resources away from managing the whole tree population,” Reich said. “But enough red oaks are affected now that we decided this year to see if it will be practical to manage the problem.”

If leaf scorch is the cause of the problem, the commission said that they can give affected trees antibiotics to fight the bacteria and also relieve tree stressors such as crowding and drought.

Reich said the treatment is expensive though, and they don’t know how much it will cost until they decide how many trees to save.

“There is no treatment that is long term,” Reich said, adding that antibiotics only last up to three years.

Commission members said that they would want to focus on saving older trees with a strong branch structure.

Untreated trees will likely die according to Reich.

Photo via Dominik Scythe on Unsplash

After extreme weather took a toll on Cherry Hill Park, the City of Falls Church has turned the remaining parts of the destroyed trees into art.

Recreation and Parks Director Daniel Schlitt commissioned a local artist to create statues from leftover stumps created by a violent storm last year that killed a few trees, Susan Finarelli, a city spokesperson, told Tysons Reporter.

Artist Andrew Mallon lives in Falls Church and specializes in chainsaw log-art. He began work on the installation in early August after Schlitt hired him for the job, Mallon told Tysons Reporter.

The installation includes four different statues, each scattered throughout the park.

The logs portray animals that would be found in neighboring forests, Mallon said. The art includes baby animals, because he thinks of parks as gathering places for families.

Mallon declined to say how much money the city paid him for the work, and Finarelli did not respond to a follow-up email.

The carvings were completed last Friday (Aug. 23) and are now on display for public viewing at 312 Park Avenue, Mallon said.

Cherry Hill Park will be a bit noisy the next few weeks. A local artist is using chainsaws to transform stumps into carved sculptures. Here are the "before" pictures. You're welcome to swing by to see the sculpting in progress! pic.twitter.com/LLauQN5RjF

— City of Falls Church (@FallsChurchGov) August 12, 2019

Photos via City of Falls Church

The community center in the City of Falls Church is getting cleaned from top to bottom.

“They do that every year just to give the floors a good scrub and get all the supplies recognized,” Susan Finarelli, a spokesperson for the City of Falls Church, said.

The center will be temporarily closed for deep cleaning from Saturday, Aug. 24, through Monday, Sept. 2.

It will reopen for public use on Tuesday, Sept. 3, with normal hours, which are 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday, 8:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday and noon-6 p.m. Sunday.

The community center provides community members access to gyms, multi-purpose rooms, a kitchen and a preschool. It also houses the senior and teen centers.

Community members looking for activities can still visit the Mary Riley Styles Public Library or visit one of the city’s public parks.

FYI: the Community Center will be closed Aug. 24 – Sept. 2 for their annual deep clean. It's good timing, since the building has an eau de sweaty camper essence right now. pic.twitter.com/SugbJDEtZh

— City of Falls Church (@FallsChurchGov) August 19, 2019

Photo via City of Falls Church Community Center/Facebook