Culture & Community

A community isn’t a community without the people and places and businesses that make it unique. From our annual Giving Back Awards to interviews with influential and talented people who call Coastal Virginia home, we explore the personalities, organizations, events and destinations that make up our community fabric.

Photos by David Uhrin/Courtesy of Moxy Virginia Beach

New Oceanfront Hotel Has Moxy

Betsy DiJulio | Archive, Culture & Community

At most hotels, ripping the art off the walls will get you shown the door. At Moxy, guests are encouraged to rip away. But...

Belvedere South

Belvedere Coffee Shop Next Gen

Marisa Marsey | Archive, Culture & Community, Restaurants

Pharrell’s Something in the Water wasn’t the only major Beach comeback this year. The Belvedere Coffee Shop & Diner...

Photos courtesy of Sherród Faulks

Where Beautiful Things Are Born

Marisa Marsey | Archive, Culture & Community, People

Designer Sherród Faulks is deep. He keeps an ancestral altar in his house “to be reminded of where I come from and who I...

Barbie and Beer

Barbies and Beer at ODU

CoVa Mag | Archive, Culture & Community

A new partnership is brewing with Old Dominion University and it happens to be just in time for the arrival of a certain...

Megan Jenifer-Harris. Photo Courtesy of String Presence Academy

String Presence Makes Music in Hampton

Beth Blachman | Archive, Culture & Community, People

Megan Jenifer-Harris has made a life’s work of the violin. The Hampton-based musician started her music business String...

Photos Courtesy of New Ravenna/Adam Ewing

New Ravenna’s Exquisite Tile Mosaics

Betsy DiJulio | Activities & Events, Archive, Culture & Community, Home & Garden

On the Southernmost tip of the Delmarva Peninsula, bounded on the west by the Chesapeake Bay and the east by the Atlantic...

garden of tomorrow

Norfolk Botanical Garden Is Growing

Leona Baker | Activities & Events, Archive, Culture & Community

Former Norfolk Botanical Garden President and CEO Michael Desplaines is at the wheel of a golf cart, deftly navigating...

pups and pints

Stay! At Pups and Pints

Marisa Marsey | Archive, Culture & Community

Heard the one about the dog that walks into a bar and asks, “Is this fire hydrant taken?” That’s not so far-fetched at...

Wagsters Theater

Making Magic with the Wagsters

Chelsea Sherman | Archive, Culture & Community

Right around the corner from the Williamsburg Premium Outlets stands an unassuming building that formerly housed the...

Harbors Edge

Firing Up the Flavor at Harbor’s Edge

Leona Baker | Archive, Culture & Community

If your idea of the food served at a senior living community is canned peas and applesauce, you might be in for a...

Author Patti McCracken's "The Angel Makers"

Patti McCracken’s “The Angel Makers”

Janine Latus | Archive, Culture & Community, Editor's Picks

Patti McCracken wandered around in the village of Nagyrev, Hungary, with her friend and neighbor Harald Leban, whom she’d...

Photo Courtesy of Elizabeth River Project

Paradise Creek’s New Education Center

Beth Hester | Archive, Culture & Community

On May 13, friends, community members, donors and partners gathered to celebrate the official opening of the...

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