The Atlanta Regional Commission announced the 2014 recipients of the Livable Centers Initiative grants yesterday.  Among the recipients were the neighboring cities of Avondale and Clarkston.  Here are the descriptions of the grants for the two cities…

City of Avondale Estates, $50,000, to study the feasibility of a roundabout, road diet and “Better Block” demonstration project.
City of Clarkston, $80,000, for a major plan update.

This is the second straight year that Avondale has received a grant.  In 2013, the city received a grant for a “major plan update and a downtown master plan”.

Hailey writes in this note to DM…

Y’all have been so supportive of Fugees Family in the past, we’re hoping we can get you involved in our Valentine’s Day project too! A post of any kind about the project would be hugely helpful.

As you know, we’ve work with refugee students in Clarkston, GA for the past seven years. Each year we add more and more students to our programs, and in turn, each year transportation becomes more and more of an issue. During the summer, we equip kids with bikes and ride into Decatur. During the school year, students use bikes and walk as much as possible. But at night, after soccer practice and tutoring, it just isn’t safe for us to send them walking home. So, for the past few years, we have been shuttling them home in our 14 passenger bus. This year we have 136 Fugees and it takes a staff member almost two hours to run the shuttle to get all the students home.

For Valentine’s Day, we’re asking supporters to show the Fugees some love by donating $100 toward helping us get a new bus! Each of the 500 generous donors that make this project possible will have their name printed on the back of the bus as a thank you, as well as to remind the Fugees of all the people who support them in achieving their dreams.

Below is the email that Luma sent to our supporters, please feel free to use any or all of the information.

Every once in a while the New York Times likes to highlight the melting pot of refugees that are making DeKalb County their home. Back in September they featured a Clarkston church that was adapting to an influx of refugees and prior to that they looked at a refugee soccer team.

Then today, one of the top emailed articles on NYTimes.com features the International Community School on Covington Hwy in DeKalb/unincorporated Decatur, where children from more than 40 different countries come to get a customized education in both classes and from each other.

The school is mix of the income brackets, comprised not just of kids from war torn countries but also from upper-income households in and around Decatur.

“Parents from low-income families tend to choose the school over other nearby public schools because it is safe and has small classes. More affluent parents seek it for the potential benefits of exposure to so many cultures. Most of the middle- and upper-middle-class parents are social progressives from Decatur, a liberal enclave. But not all.

Harvey Clark, whose son Zade is in the fifth grade, is a veteran of the Persian Gulf war and a Nascar fan.”

What will the New York Times’ next DeKalb refugee feature be?